In 1990, Mark and I had taken a trip to Europe. From Athens, we’d taken a ship through the Corinth Canal north through the Adriatic to Venice. We rented a car and drove through the Alps to Bavaria. In Oberammergau, we stayed with friends who introduced us to one of the master wood carvers for which the town is famous.
Before we left, we commissioned a Christmas crèche. Each December, we’d be receiving a piece or two until we had a complete cast of characters. The first Christmas, we got the Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus. By the time everything went up in smoke, we’d added two shepherds, a goat, a cow, a donkey, and a couple of angels.
When Mark got home, I showed him the box. “Do you know what this is?” I asked. He, too, was puzzled for a minute, but then he smiled. “It’s got to be the wise men,” he said. We opened the package, pulled away the excelsior, and there they were, each holding his perfectly carved little gift, each looking intently in the direction of a recipient who wasn’t there.
“Sorry, no baby Jesus here,” I said as I set them on the dining room table. “I’m afraid you guys came to the wrong stable.”
But they didn’t, really. They proved that no matter what happens, Christmas comes. Christmas doesn’t even require a baby Jesus. It comes anyway, and the wise men proved it that year by insisting on arriving at an empty rental cottage.
And Christmas did come. By the time it arrived, we’d celebrated my parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary and my birthday, and we’d announced our grand plan. We’d hung a huge map of North America on the living room wall, and we’d begun sticking pins in all the places we’d always dreamed of visiting.
The wise men stayed on our table through January. Before I packed them away, I wrote to the wood carver to explain what had happened and ask him to start over. “We need a new holy family,” I wrote, “And shepherds and animals and angels. Everything but the wise men.”
Next Christmas, even if we had no table to set them on, the wise men would have something to look at, a reason for bearing gifts. I figured it was the least I could do for them, since they’d traveled 6,000 miles on faith, and arrived just when we needed some.
And now, we were about to follow our own star, with not much more than faith to fund it. We were fairy tale youngest sons, the ones who pack a bandana and leave home on foot to seek their fortunes. Maybe we should have followed their lead, but we were post-Ford children, and we needed something more. Before we could hit the road, we had to find ourselves a vehicle.
Chapter 2
A Phoenix Hatches
Trek to Traveland
Before we decided we wanted to acquire one of our own, neither Mark nor I had done much more than peek inside a motorhome. As children, we’d camped in tents with our families. We’d felt superior to people who didn’t like “roughing it,” overly civilized softies who couldn’t be away from television for a weekend and felt compelled to tow their own bathrooms. Never in a million years did we see ourselves as members of the Winnebago crowd.
We still didn’t, but we also didn’t want to hit the road in a tent. If we were going to live on a roll for six months, we wanted a few amenities. Suddenly, we had metamorphosed into the people we’d snickered at. We’d be equipped with television. We’d be hauling our own toilet.
It was a novel idea for us, but Americans have been in love with recreational vehicles since 1929, when the Covered Wagon Company in Mt. Clemens, Michigan, offered the first mass produced travel trailer to the public. By the end of the 1930s, 300 companies were building homes-on-wheels, and the growth continues. Hundreds of thousands of vans, trailers, campers and motorhomes are on the road at any given moment today, and even more fill storage yards and driveways from coast to coast. We wanted only one, but we were daunted at the prospect of finding it. We hardly knew where to begin.
Fortunately, just about every motorhome, camper, and trailer ever built can be found and purchased in southern California. It’s an RV shopper’s Mecca, rivaled only by Florida and Arizona. We decided to begin our search at a gigantic consortium of dealers known as Traveland USA. Its billboard promised hundreds of manufacturers and thousands of units, all in one magnificent location. It was the kind of place we’d heretofore assiduously avoided, but early one Sunday morning, we drove straight to Irvine and parked in the shadow of fourteen Winnebagos.
A guard at an entrance kiosk gave us a map to Traveland that identified all the manufacturers and their locations. Not knowing where else to begin, we went to number one. It was a warm day, and a salesman was lounging in a folding chair outside an office in a trailer. He stretched, rose, and walked toward us.
“Howdy, folks,” he said. “How can I help you this fine, fine morning?”
“We want to buy an RV,” said Mark. “What can you show us?”
The salesman looked at us through narrow eyes, sizing up the down payment we were likely to represent. He steered us in the direction of something called a Jamboree, a boxy-looking vehicle about the length of two sedans. It was white, with corrugated siding and a front end like a pickup truck. We climbed inside, and the salesman invited us to sit down on the settee.
Realizing immediately that we were ignorant “first-time buyers,” the salesman launched into a well-rehearsed 30-minute lecture about recreational vehicles. By the time he wrapped up, we’d learned the difference between a Class “A” (a bus) and a Class “C” (the kind we were sitting in). We knew about GVW (gross vehicle weight) and how important it was to know how much stuff you can load into a vehicle before the axles break. We knew about water tanks and propane tanks, generators and refrigerators, wind shear and suspension, inverters and converters, water pumps and fuel pumps.
While he was talking, I was taking in my surroundings. It was pretty spacious, I thought. I could live in this. There was a bedroom in the back, and another bed over the cab. The galley looked adequate, and the dining table seated four. What more did we need?
Suddenly Mark asked, “Does anybody make an RV with four-wheel drive?”
The salesman shrugged. “Well, actually there is one company that does. It’s expensive, and it has no resale value, so I can’t imagine anybody buying it, but there’s one sitting on the lot here somewhere.”
That did it. We thanked the salesman and said we’d be back if the Jamboree turned out to be the right truck for us. “Whatever you decide, I’d sure like to have a shot at the deal,” he said forlornly as we departed. He sat back down in the folding chair, and we set off to find the four-by-four.
We asked the guard. “Oh, that thing,” he said. “It’s about a hundred yards around that bend to the right. You’ll recognize it when you see it.” We walked down the road and looked at all the vehicles with new eyes. “Class ‘A’,” I said, pointing to a huge bus with a patriotic mural on the side and an enormous satellite dish on the roof. “I can’t see us driving around in anything that conspicuous.”
“Well, I can’t see us driving around in a Jamboree,” said Mark. “It looked nice, but it had a flimsy feel. Did you noticed how far it leaned when we stepped inside? It’s basically made of plywood and fiberglass. Doesn’t anybody build these things like aircraft?”
We rounded the bend and stopped dead in our tracks. “That’s it,” said Mark, “Look at that thing.” I looked. It was huge, it had six enormous tires and a big winch on the front bumper. The body was smooth and streamlined, and five driving lamps each had covers that read “Super Off-Roader.” Mark smiled, and we headed toward the office to find somebody to let us inside.
You Say You Want a Revolution
But here I must digress. I’ve got to issue a warning to all those who say they want a revolution. This was November 10, 1993. The preceding December, I’d turned forty. It hit me like Dorothy’s house hit the witch.
I was morose for days. I went about my daily drill, but I was a rusty tin man, forcing unwilling joints to move in directions they resisted. Life was toil. It w
asn’t unbearable, though, and I kept at it. I kept putting on nylons and checking my voice mail.
I told myself I wanted a revolution. I said it silently, but it shrieked in my head. It kept yelling for ten months. For ten months, I kept putting on nylons and checking my voice mail.
Then my house burned down. I got my revolution.
I didn’t have to accept its offer of transformation. I could have put everything back, down to last pair of panty hose. It would have been easier. It would have made lots of people more comfortable.
But how many revolutions do you get in life? I hadn’t had enough to waste one. However it might turn out, I’d turned enough degrees to have a whole new view in front of me.
It seemed monumental, but the fire, it turns out, was just a little baby vortex, a personal whirl that invited me to a new life. I didn’t know as I stepped inside a Super Off-Roader at Traveland that I was on the edge of a Charybdis of global dimensions.
You were, too. We all were. 1994 was the year we heard “Information Superhighway” until we were sick of it. It was the year we got to know Bill Gates, and began tossing “Internet” into casual conversation.
America hit the road to cyberspace in 1994, beginning a revolution we’ve only begun to understand. It envelopes the world, and we can’t ignore it. If we keep putting on nylons and checking voice mail, we’ll be left in the dust.
The five years we’ve spent letting America’s highways unroll underneath our wheels are the same five years Americans have moved into virtual realms. We’ve watched it happen in Eastern Oregon, northern Idaho, southern Texas, the Florida keys. No one’s driven a golden spike, but it’s no less monumental than the completion of the transcontinental railroad.
But enough. Please join us as we step inside the Super Off-Roader. Take a look at the ultra-macho truck we decided to call home for the six months that never ended. It’s about to embark on a journey you’ve been on, too.
We caught the saleswoman just as she was about to leave. She got back out of her car, unlocked her office, and took the key to the Super Off-Roader off a hook on a peg board. We walked back out to the monster, and she unlocked the coach door.
As the door opened, two steps magically slid out from under the body and clicked into place. To anyone who knows anything about motorhomes, this would come as small surprise. To us, it was one more new thing, and I have to say, it made the Super Off-Roader seem terrifically cutting edge. We stepped up and inside.
“Take your time looking around,” called the saleswoman from outside. “I’m going back to the office to get a video to show you. I’ll be right back.” The door clicked shut with satisfying heft. “This is more like it,” said Mark.
To the right of the door was a bleached oak panel of electronic entertainment devices, including a television, a CD changer and a video player. A table flanked by two benches faced us, and to our left was the galley. Over the cab was a bunk that looked big enough for two. The cab itself held four captain’s chairs.
A hallway led to the back room, which housed a table and a wrap-around sofa against three walls. All in all, the Super Off-Roader looked like a cross between a mobile military command post and a party wagon. It was the ultimate in manliness, the sort of rig guys dream about taking their buddies hunting in, no women allowed.
I sat down at the table, trying the thing on for style. It felt like a status symbol. It felt like a machine designed for the same men who buy red convertibles and marry trophy wives, it was a quantum leap beyond the bus-like monster with the satellite dish and the patriotic mural. “This thing defines conspicuous consumption,” I thought to myself, “And it positively screams Southern California.”
It was also built like an aircraft. The carpeted walls sloped in at the top, and the cabinets were cut to fit. Nothing was corrugated. Nothing was fiberboard. “Sleek” says it the best.
The saleswoman returned with the video. She slid it into the video player and said, “Now you can see the Trailblazer in action.” The Trailblazer. Now we knew its name, and for the next ten minutes we watched two men take a similar machine over boulders and across streams to music that sounded like a cross between “Rawhide” and “Chariots of Fire.”
When it was over, Mark asked the saleswoman a bunch of questions, but I knew we weren’t going to be doing any more shopping. 99.99% of motor homes built in America are designed with 60-ish couples in mind. They’re suburban split-levels squeezed and shrunk to fit inside a rectangle eight feet wide and 30 feet long. They’ve got upholstered window treatments, matching throw pillows, and built-in spice racks.
The Trailblazer was more like a ski hut reduced to fit on a one-ton Ford truck chassis, which of course didn’t match our profile, either. But Corey, the saleswoman, had divulged another piece of information in passing. “You can follow your Trailblazer from chassis to completion,” she’d said. “We can customize the interior for you.”
“You mean we can have an office in the back?” asked Mark, “Instead of a party room?”
“I can’t see why not,” said Corey, “But you might want to visit our factory and talk to the designers.”
We set a time to meet at the Revcon factory in Irvine, and stepped back outside the Trailblazer.
“It’s huge,” I said.
“I guess we need to know how much it costs,” said Mark.
“$75,000,” said Corey.
We thanked her and walked back toward the gate. $75,000 was three times more than we’d thought about spending. The guy with the Jamboree had been right on target when he’d sized us up.
“We’ll go see the factory, and then we can decide,” said Mark, but it was too late. We both knew it. We’d finished shopping, even though we’d hardly begun. We’d picked our wheels, and now we had a new challenge: figuring out how to pay for them when our income was about to drop by 90%.
Lunch with the Suits
Money. We’re all brought up to plan our lives around how much we have, how much we expect to have, and how afraid we are of not having enough. I’d always lived well within my means. I had a couple of credit cards, but I always paid them off every month. I’d used them as an easy way of buying stuff, a way to avoid writing checks or carrying cash. The only big debt I’d ever incurred was a house loan.
The fire burned up my good habits along with my stuff. When I saw how easily the things I’d always considered permanent metamorphosed into smoke and ash, it shook all my assumptions. I’d always known anything could happen, but now I’d experienced it. There’s a difference.
Two days after the fire, I put on my one remaining business outfit, the one that had escaped destruction by being at the dry cleaners. I went to work, accomplished nothing, and then decided to have lunch at the University Club.
The University Club is a former old boys’ bastion I had joined a couple of years before. It was a good place for quiet lunches with business associates, and a growing number of female members was lightening its heavily masculine atmosphere. Even so, when I walked in the door, the round members’ table in the center of the room was occupied by a phalanx of men. Every one of them had twenty years on me.
The week before, I would have looked for another table. I would have eaten alone rather than sit surrounded by suits. They’d always intimidated me. Today, as I stood in the doorway, I found myself looking at them and asking, “What have I got to lose?” It almost made me laugh out loud when I realized I’d never been so entitled to answer, “Nothing!” I walked right over to the table full of men and sat down. They looked surprised, but they all murmured hello.
They went back to talking about the fire, which was the only topic of conversation all over Pasadena. None of them had been affected, and they were wondering what was going on up in the hills. “It’s still burning,” I said. “My house went two days ago.” The conversation stopped. The whole table looked at me blankly. I was their first concrete examp
le of burnout, and it silenced them. “It was all gone in a couple of hours,” I said. “Just about the only things that survived were the cars we left in.” They didn’t know what to say. They were all busy imagining what they’d be doing if their houses had burned down less than 48 hours before. They were having a tough time.
“I came here for lunch,” I said, “Because I couldn’t go home.” I laughed, and they stared at me again. That’s when it hit me. They were scared. They thought that losing all their stuff was the worst thing that could happen to them. They’d spent a lifetime piling it up and guarding it. They couldn’t imagine what it was like to have it all snatched away, just like that, poof!
And then another thought struck me. They were supposed to be the powerful ones, the ones who intimidated the likes of me. But now they looked like slaves to the pursuit of security. I felt free. I smiled sweetly at them as they remained speechless. I think I spoiled their lunch.
Somehow, the fire had singed my soul. It ignited a thousand cliches with new meaning. If not now, when? Life’s not a dress rehearsal. Be here, now. Follow your dreams. Climb every mountain. What are you waiting for? What have you got to lose? Just do it!
They were all shouting at me as we drove away from Traveland wondering how in the world we could buy a $75,000 truck. “Just do it!” drowned all rational doubts, and the next morning, we drove to Irvine to take a look at the Revcon factory.
Bastard Hunting
Revcon was housed in an industrial park, one of the thousands that have taken root in Orange County where citrus groves used to thrive. Anonymous on the exterior, they can surprise you with wonders on the inside. I once went into one that was a sculptor’s studio, and another that was full of trombones, tubas, and a fascinating fellow who repaired them. Outside, they’re urban sprawl. Inside, they’re secret entrepreneurial kingdoms.
Roads From the Ashes Page 3