Meramec Caverns This Time
May 26, 2006
Email to Rob McCaskill.
Today Linda and I went to Meramec Caverns. Toured the cave. I think I was only in it once before, and that would have been with my family, when I was a boy. For some reason when I think of that gorgeous underworld I think of my mother, though it was the whole family I first saw it with: I associate those colorful wonders of stone and water with her, probably because I would have been pointing out each new sight to her, so she could thank me for discovering it. So today felt a little like visiting Mom.
Coming out of the dark coolness of the cave into the bright, hot afternoon felt wonderfully balmy. Missouri felt tropical. That sensation only lasted a couple of minutes, but it was very fine to experience.
Linda and I went our separate ways outside. She to take pictures and collect rocks from the gravel bars of the adjacent Meramec River. Me to take pictures while running my stereo audio recorder. The campground was packed with people camping and coming in off the river with their boats and inflatable things, and there was a constant din of motors and music and people—but a relaxed, spread-out noisiness. Yells and motors muted by varioius amounts of distance. Overlapping music, also in the distance usually. The river’s own sound and the breeze in the trees stirring it all together nicely.
It was classic Memorial Day. Campers, tents, awnings, flags, beer, music, campfires, dogs, motor scooters, towels and swimsuits drying on ropes, the smell of suntan lotion and burning wood and cooking meat, kids in swimsuits riding bikes, people throwing balls. I found the best way to get good pictures was to ask. “Do you mind if I take your picture?” No one objected. Most of them smiled for the camera and again as I left, waving.
One couple called me closer in their campsite.. He was standing with his arm around her neck. They were asking if I wanted a certain kind of pose. I couldn’t understand the words, but somehow I knew what they were offering. The man pulled the woman’s halter up, showing her bra. Then he lifted the bra. I took several quick shots, then stepped closer. “Can I get a closeup?” But evidently my pair had noticed that a woman at the campsite behind me, chatting with a park ranger, had seen and snitched on us. “I don’t want to get kicked out of here,” the man apologized. “But you got a good shot, right?” I said I had. “It looked pretty nice, right?” he asked me. “Yeah,” I said. “That’s why I wanted a closeup.” The couple laughed, we wished one another a good weekend and waved goodbye a couple of times as I continued my stroll.
I saw a tattooed man with a red Cardinals cap sitting in the water drinking a beer—asked if I could take his picture. He posed several different ways. Told me his name was Fred Weiser, but everyone called him Bud. Which is what he was drinking. We talked some nonsense, but I wasn’t sure he knew it was nonsense, it was the kind of semi-funny stuff you say when one person is drinking and the other isn’t. We thanked one another for the picture, and as I left he told me not to do anything he wouldn’t do. I met him again later. Asked if he was spending the whole weekend there. Said he was, that his four-year-old twins would be there tomorrow. “They’re awesome,” he said. I realized he was inviting me to meet them. “You gonna be here tomorrow?” he said. “I’m camping right there, in that van. This place is great. I lived here for two weeks once. My partner abandoned me. I had a microwave and everything—I stayed right over there, next to that bathroom. That’s where my twins was conceived.” I told him, “That’s a great story.” He said, “It is a great story.” I said I’d try to catch him tomorrow and we’d drink a beer together, even though I knew I would be traveling to Arkansas tomorrow.
I realized after I left him that my recorder had used up its disc. The equipment is always doing that when you come across the best stuff. A battery dies, the media fills up, a cable comes unplugged. You’re always wanting better equipment. But just being out there with your gear you’re at least witnessing things you wouldn’t otherwise, because your senses are extra alert, and some of it gets into your memory that wouldn’t if you weren’t there trying to catch it with the equipment. A lot of times it is something that will only happen once and only for a moment.
Met four fat girls lugging a giant yellow inflatable eight. Asked if I could take their picture. They posed. I told one of them she was doubly pink—her bikini and her sunburn. “That’s gonna hurt,” I said. “It hurts already,” she said. They told me it had been a rough float—the current was strong, people were getting hurt, there’d been a fight upstream, some girl beating up her boyfriend. I told them they’d feel better after they drank a few beers. They laughed and said they were on their way to do just that. They waved and showed me their awful teeth and we wished one another a good weekend. There were a lot of bad teeth in the campground today. And a lot of country accents and—a quality of complexion and I think even a kind of face I recognize as belonging to poor hill-country people. I’ll take a stab at it: a rather flat face with prominent bones under wide-set eyes and rather wide, flat mouths, and grayish brown hair.
Tomorrow morning Linda, Dad and I take off for a two-day trip to Arkansas. All day Sunday and Monday. Tuesday I’ll try to conclude my Missouri business. The dealer might buy the truck back. But maybe not. Depending on that and other things, I might push my return flight back by a week. Or might decide to let the return fare go unused and drive the truck home a week later. Or might stick with the schedule and fly home Wednesday morning. Will play by ear.
I liked you letter. Your responses to my report. Shared some of it with Linda. She burst out, “I want a friend like that!”
When do you leave for the Outer Banks?—Email to Rob McCaskill