[sense of place]
FRITOS AND BEANS Photo by Jesse Veeder Scofield.
I slip on my green-striped rain boots and button up my insulated, newly purchased and appreciated wind-breaker as I feel the striking Canadian wind blowing the northwest side of the camper, rocking it like a weathered dinghy in a storm-raged sea of white-topped waves. I grab my keys, slip out the aluminum door, barely saving it from the grabbing arms of the wind, and tread through the 10 feet of sloppy mud that lies between my rickety wooden stairs and the driver side door of my Pontiac. My two children are snuggled up on the pullout couch watching an old DVD of Ice Age on my laptop. “Jimmy, watch after your little sister; I’ll be right back!” That’s not true. I won’t be right back. All I need to do is run to the store for a can of beans and some Fritos to complete our supper of chili. In a normal town, on a normal afternoon, I would be right back. But our town is not normal. Normal is a fascinating state of being which I no longer try to emulate. A sluggish economy contributed to my husband’s loss of a supposedly secure job, leaving us with a dwindling savings and a hefty mortgage. Like all the other pioneers making the adventurous trek to the overpopulated small towns of western North Dakota with infrastructures the size of a stalk of wheat, we found ourselves living in a man camp lined with dozens of campers and propane tanks.
16
By Melanie Smith
In the first two months of our “oil boom” living, I tried to convince myself a life of “new normal.” In my mind, I tried to replace my 1800 square foot home, centrally heated and air conditioned, with my 250 square foot camper equipped with the latest and greatest space heater Walmart could provide. I put a plant on the tiny ledge above my minisink to replace the flourishing garden I left behind. The homemade quilt spread on the double bed squeezed into the back of the camper was meant to satisfy a longing for my former spacious, rustic décor. My new normal boasted of tiny co-existence in a sardine can tossing on a vast sea of grain. It takes me a minute or two to manipulate my two-wheel drive out of the mud pit. It’s an art. Turn the wheel from side to side and press on the gas in spurts. The mud eventually produces a smidge of traction and my small, economical, urban-loving car is free. Looking ahead to the highway, I notice a break in the steady stream of trucks that constantly lines the road. Here’s my chance! I press the accelerator, lurching through three cavernous potholes, bolting onto the highway and fishtailing into my northbound lane, right between an oil truck and a “wide load” mobile home. Trucks. I have a new appreciation for the five o’clock rush in my old town. Drivers pass the time there in predictable four lanes with Starbucks and iPhones. Here? Venturing out onto the highway is ranked right up on the death-defying, risk-taking, life-threatening events like rattlesnake taming and base-jumping. The typical twenty-something oil-field worker is your
