Coonridge Digest: I paid for this?

Greetin’s from the Riverboat.

Herb survived the calliope blast and the blonde waitress survived Herb…both by just a smidgeon.

As is always the case with Herb, he can turn a pleasant two-day riverboat cruise into an adventure of Titanic proportions.

We’d booked passage on the Spirit of Peoria and were steamin’ up toward Starved Rock State Park amid a crowd of fifty-some vacationers. It soon became obvious to the assembled adventurers that when you’ve got Herb Crump onboard, there’s little need for other entertainment.

Our paddleboat came stocked with sumptuous grub, a bottomless coffee urn, two musicians and a storyteller who regaled us with stories about the rivers of the Midwest. I suspect that some of them were true. All this had been carefully planned ahead of time. Herb had not.

In the first place, the man is windy when he’s in the comfortable confines of his own Coonridge.

When he goes on vacation he becomes one of the most notorious liars on the river. Time after time I’d walk into a conversation where Herb was holding forth and a fellow traveler would look at me and say, “So you’re the wife of Dr. Crump?”

Dr. Crump? In the span of a seven-hour journey, Herb had become a neurosurgeon, a retired Marine officer, the choreographer for the San Francisco ballet company (I have no idea where that one came from), a cousin to George W. Bush, and a travel writer for the New York Times.

When he has one of these windy spells I usually let it go and pass it off as elderly traveler’s dementia, but when you’re confined to a boat it takes some careful calculation. When we take our fifteen-countries-in-seven-days tours of Europe, he can hogwash his way across the continent without fear of ever runnin’ in to the same person twice. The Spirit of Peoria was somewhat less large than Northern Europe and I had to remember that on the aft deck of the upper level I was the choreographer’s assistant while on deck two I was the dying wife of the Marine who was taking his ailing bride on her final journey up river. It took some doin’.

We reached Starved Rock on one of those idyllic days where you figured that God was tryin’ extra hard. The gentle breeze comin’ off the Illinois River just sort of wafted us onto the bus waiting to haul us up the hill to the lodge.

I have never been a big fan of dead animals stuck on walls, and it’s always seemed ironic that the very places that tout the joys of wildlife are the first ones to kill ‘em and stick their heads above the fireplace. I ate supper that night beneath the steely gaze of a very large, dead moose. By the look of him, I guessed that he’d already had supper and was mightily bored with the present company.

We moved into the lounge to enjoy just about the best Mark Twain impersonator I’d ever heard, then met a group of fellow journeyers for what was advertised as a “leisurely stroll through the woods.” I now know where they got the phrase “Trail of Tears.” Our nature guide was forty, fit, and fueled by too much caffeine at supper. As he chugged up and down the forest path, across treacherously slickened bridges, and down slippery slopes, I kept thinkin’, “And I paid for this?”

The trick is to get toward the front of the pack when you’ve got one of these nature boys as your guide. All over the world the pattern is the same. The guide will chug ahead at a sprinter’s pace then come to a halt at some interesting bit of flora, fauna or Florentine sculpture to give his spiel.

If you’re in the rear of the group you’ll arrive just in time to hear him say, “And now let’s move along.”

We survived the hike and I took possession of the first sofa in sight once we hit the lounge. Herb and I have had a congenial enough marriage but our schedules have never meshed. Just when I’m ready to go, he’s of a mind to sit, and when I’m tuckered, he’s charged with unnatural energy. In this case he had the additional stimulation of several young ladies in our group headed for the hot tub. “Herb,” I said, “I didn’t pack your swim suit.”

“I got some old shorts.”

“That’s just the point, Herb. They’re old shorts and you’ve got an old body. That’s a dangerous combination.”

However, when we’re on vacation I let the man have his head in these matters and he happily trotted off to bubbleland with the babies. At least if there was an accident, they’d have a neurosurgeon handy.

You ever in Coonridge, stop by. We may not answer the door but you’ll enjoy the trip.