The City Council: A fictional narrative of rural life in the American West: Episode 227: Orin and Susan’s Camping Retreat

Orin and Susan Holman sit side by side in the mouth of the open double doors of the 1962 primer gray Ford Econoline van, their camping shelter. They listen to the gurgle and babble of Fetching Springs Creek, watching the colors of the water splash over the river rocks. Evening is coming on; frogs and crickets carry on. The yellows of the larch and the reds of the vine maple are waning.

“A pleasant night,” Susan says.

“A timeless night, my dear. Aside from the van, we could be sitting here 300 years ago. We could be camping someplace along the Mormon Trail in the 1840s!”

She pats him on the thigh. “My time traveler.”

“Yep.”

Orin had been reading from the illustrated books of Eric Sloane, a chronicler of life in early America and its tools, buildings, and evolving customs.

He chuckles. “The manufacturers want to convince us to hurry up and buy, hurry up and sell, live longingly with a philosophy of stylish dissatisfaction.”

She nods. “Coming out here allows us to turn it off, tune it out, be our quiet reflective selves.”

Decades back Orin had built this simple campsite by the creek, and it has well served its purpose as retreat, as their Balm of Gilead. In the fire ring a small fire’s flames leap and fall, curl and flair.

Staring at the flames, Orin recalls a passage from Sloane, actually a list of quotations of Fourth of July toasts from an 1822 newspaper, quote No. 6: “To the Legislature and Executive Departments of the United States — May they think less about the next Presidency and more about our National concern.”

He smiles, thinking, “And despite our prayers, the more things change, the more they remain the same.”

Susan wraps her arm around Orin’s waist. “Every family ought to have such a place.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

They’d been prayerfully considering a mission to Nauvoo, Ill., where they would give of their expertise as living historians demonstrating farm and home craft skills. He imagines rope making, tanning, and the chisel work of mortise and tenon wood joinery. She sees herself teaching candle making, quilting, and baking with a wood stove. Yet they didn’t know exactly what was in store for them, and the unknowns are exciting for both Orin and Susan as they dream on, seeing themselves living in one of the Federalist styled homes, built of Nauvoo Red brick. The town site and its land along the Mississippi River is an indivisible part of their common heritage. Both Susan and Orin had grandparents that had been raised in plural families, descendants of exiles from Nauvoo, followers of Brigham Young. In fact, because of the curious, complicated genealogies of Mormons, the couple are actually related, Susan’s great-grandmother being the great- great- aunt of Orin’s.

Their son, David, has agreed to take over operation of the farm. He has been working as an insurance agent in Garfield, and was ready for a change. He was spending far more time with the tedium of auto insurance instead of financial planning, which was the real reason he chose this career path, to help people establish goals with money.

Their four daughters, Eve, Mary, Sariah, and Abish had all married and were settled and sealed comfortably in the Salt Lake Valley with families of their own.

In their planning, Orin and Susan have scheduled a conversation with the mission president responsible for Nauvoo and are preparing the necessary documents. They would buy a small trailer and drive back east, hoping, after their summer’s stint, to drive up to New England for the fall colors, then return casually through Canada, with plenty of time for Quebec, Montreal, and Toronto.

The exodus from Nauvoo in 1846 away from blood-thirsty mobs was bedrock for the Holman’s stalwart faith. While it had been a long story of persecution for the Latter-Day Saints, Nauvoo was an especially bitter chapter because the people had built such a strong, thriving community after their journey from New York to Ohio to Missouri and then, they thought, finally, to Illinois. Their ancestors crossed the Mississippi’s icy, turbulent waters and trudged northwest through muck and mire across Iowa to some sense of safety at Winter Quarters on the Missouri River. It was from Nauvoo that their forebears traveled to the western front of the Wasatch Range, where these followers prospered.

Orin, staring at the fire, thinks on the quote and that concept of a singular “national concern.” “As one people, what do we Americans need in order to pursue a tangible happiness? I know what life is, but what is liberty under any form of government? Some seem to be confusing anarchy for liberty. How do we as Americans come to terms within our compact with the bounds of liberty?”

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The City Council is a work of fiction by Jim Tindall, appearing every other week in Columbia Gorge News.