Published Articles

KETCHUP AND CONVERTIBLES
By Karen Ackland

We're driving to the camp store - my husband, Larry, his two daughters, and me - to buy ketchup. I think it's unnecessary to drive an hour for a bottle of ketchup, but then, I'm not the one who wants it.

Examining the ice chest this morning, Alexis and Jennie discovered that I planned to barbecue pork chops for dinner. I needed ketchup, they told me. But these pork chops have been marinating in homemade teriyaki sauce and don't need ketchup, I replied. The girls informed me that they always have ketchup with pork chops. They can't eat pork chops without ketchup. Besides, I didn't bring enough Pepsi.

This is the second time we've gone camping over the Fourth of July. Last year, when we were getting to know each other, the girls suggested camping, to the surprise of their father. They are suburban kids, accustomed to malls and fast food, but assured him they love camping. I suspected they considered their father and me too inept to manage a relationship without their help and thought sleeping together in a tent would move things forward.

This year their father are I are safely married, and the girls have progressed from wooing to indoctrinating. They've become teenagers, and I'm on my way to becoming a Mom.

"Look at the purple lupine," I say, riding shotgun. "Maybe we'll come back and hike around the volcanic area tomorrow." Occasionally, my husband glances in the direction I am pointing, but the two in the back are hooked up to portable CD players. The only sound I hear is a faint clicking as they repeatedly listen to the same phrase over and over again. I'm not sure why this should bother me, but I wish they'd play the thing all the way through.

I am momentarily encouraged when Alexis looks up, until she yells as if she'd gone suddenly deaf, "I'm not going up there."

"On your life," Jennie adds, not recognizing that she, too, is shouting.

"Boring."

I feel like a tour guide on a geriatric bus.

When we reach the small camp store, the girls spring into action. Besides ketchup, they need Hershey's chocolate milk, vanilla wafers, a giant jar of cheese dip, tortilla chips, and, of course, Pepsi. Normally I try to avoid processed foods but, feeling powerless to curtail the flood of junk food, I buy myself a box of licorice whips.

I dole out quarters for the public showers located behind the store. When we arrived last night, the first thing the girls did was check out the restrooms. Not finding a shower, they insisted on packing up right then and leaving. This morning, I stopped them from hailing the ranger as he drove through the camp. They had some suggestions for how he could remodel the bathroom.

There is a long line at the showers and I try to convince the girls to perform a minimal toilette. "We're camping," I tell them cheerfully. "We get to go without showers and make-up." I'm given a look that makes me feel like a teenager who's just done something that will permanently prevent popularity.

Back at camp, Larry and I carry the ice chest and four plastic crates with the cooking supplies from his SUV. For years I went camping with my friend Julie, leaving early Saturday morning for an impromptu week-end away, our cooking supplies thrown together in a single tote bag. This trip, it took hours to pack the car. Every available space inside is filled, a container on the roof overflows with gear. I feel weighted down with all this stuff.

I hoped to convey my own enthusiasm about the outdoors to the girls, the sense of wonder I feel seeing light filtered through the tops of a grove of redwood trees or spotting a fawn in a meadow. I remember camping as a girl and marveling at the things my father knew how to do: things that weren't part of our suburban lives. I wanted the girls to see my husband in a similar way. I didn't allow that they might have agendas of their own.

In the next campsite two young women who've recently arrived in a red Mustang convertible are setting up a backpacking tent and grilling what look like tuna steaks. There are two stemmed glasses on their table and a bottle of white wine. On my table there is a two-liter bottle of Pepsi, chips and salsa, chocolate chip cookies, a can of bug spray, a quart of cream rinse, and a pile of damp towels. I'm feeling decidedly matronly and it's not attractive.

Afraid my staring will be misinterpreted, I say hello to the two women the next time I make a trip to the Jeep. They've gotten off to a late start from the city, but plan to hike Lassen Peak the next day. It'll be a struggle for me to coax my group on the paved walk to the Sulfur Works without them threatening to puke from the smell.

I want to explain to the women that I used to be like them. I want them to know that Alex and Jennie are my husband's children, that I don't like Pepsi, and that, in other circumstances, I'd hike Lassen Peak myself.

Why do I need to explain myself? While the girls may not admit it, we are having a good time. Early in our relationship, the girls discover that I easily startle, so they've spent much of the last two days hiding in toilet stalls or behind the tent fly, jumping out suddenly to yell, "Boo." I scream; they laugh and run to tell their father.

This morning I cajoled Jennie into taking a hike with me to see the wildflowers. We ended up in a beautiful meadow with sufficient snow to build a miniature snowman. She hadn't enjoyed a single minute, she assured me when we got back to camp, but I recognized that for the negotiating ploy it was.

I have more experience entertaining myself in a foreign city than amusing two kids in a national park. I've ordered dinner in a different language with more assurance, certainly with more culinary success, than the other night when we stopped at Wendy's. Everyone, including my husband, knew exactly what combo meal they wanted by the time we reached the counter while I frantically tried to read the overhead menu.

When I traveled with a friend, the days would stretch out in unplanned, indulgent ways. We'd sit for hours in cafŽs reading books and drinking coffee. Or we'd take a long hike and later skip dinner. We didn't consciously avoid families, but we didn't spend much time around them either.

When we did encounter families, I sensed suspicion, even envy, from the mothers. Single and childless, I seemed to project a dislike of children I didn't feel.

"It must be nice to be here by yourself," a mother might sigh. Or I heard versions of the familiar, "You can't understand." I knew that in an important way I didn't understand. But empathy never seemed to run both ways.

With or without Alexis and Jennie, my appearance is the same, but with two kids beside me, I've become a mom handing out junk food. It is not so much that I've lost my identity; I've assumed another. At forty-five, falling in love, marrying, and becoming a part-time mother was an unexpected gift. But I spent too many years as a single woman to instantly identify with moms.

We all need to declare ourselves, and once again my stepdaughters are taking the lead. They want me to know they are not the kind who willingly go hiking, eat pork chops without ketchup, or skip their daily showers.

"I used to be like you," I silently tell the young women in the red Mustang. "And now I have kids."

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