Campground hosts/volunteers

During our almost-three-month adventure, we have stayed primarily in state and national parks. Compared to private RV parks, they tend to be more rustic, are often located in more beautiful natural locations, don’t tend to cram campers on top of one another, and cater to a wider variety of people.

Central to the enjoyment of the national and state parks are the volunteers. Each campground typically has two or more “hosts” that work to keep the campground running smoothly. The volunteer hosts are often retired couples, though I have seen some singles doing the work.

In exchange for their work, they generally receive their RV space with water/electricity and waste services, but little to no other compensation. The volunteers work a schedule of 3 days on and 3/4 days off, or something similar. Duties range from working the front gate to maintenance of the rest rooms, delivering firewood in the evenings, giving tours, collecting fees, etc. etc.

The volunteer days can be long — I chatted with one of the hosts recently on her 8:00 pm last “run” around the park in her golf cart, and she said that she would return to it at 5:00 am the next morning. In a Corps of Engineer park where I stayed in August, the day started at 7:00 am and didn’t end until they locked up the gate at 10:00 pm and took one last loop around the park in their little cart.

Because the hosts are the public face of the campground system, the jobs seem to attract individuals who have pretty good people-skills with interesting life experiences. I really enjoy visiting with them when they have time on their rounds.

But in my most recent campground, I ran into a situation that was, let’s say “off-brand”.

It was at one of Oregon’s state parks, called Jessie M. Honeyman Memorial Park — remember that name.
On one of my walks with the dogs, I stopped into the campground Welcome Center — it’s a place that serves complimentary coffee for campers, sells firewood, a few trinkets and usually has a video loop running about the sites to see in and around the area. Two people were staffing the Welcome Center and I was the only visitor.

It was several minutes before I was greeted with “May we help you”? I thought that was odd, but moved on. I say, “Yes. Who was Jessie M. Honeyman”? Response on the part of one of the two volunteers was hilariously clueless — mouth downturned, eyes wide open with a “you askin’ ME?” expression, and shoulders shrugged. You all know the look. The second volunteer stammered something like, “I used to know, but I forgot”.

If there had been a third volunteer, I would have expected, “The dog ate the camground history brochure”.

*Sigh*. I won’t claim to be the most curious or resourceful person that’s ever lived. But if I were volunteering in a park, at a Welcome Center which tends to be where newcomers congregate, and the park was named with the specificity of “Jessie M. Honeyman” (not Jessie K. Honeyman — Jessie M.) I am 100% positive that I would find out who he* was.

I admit to standing for a few seconds in the center of the welcome center, looking from one volunteer to the other in stupefied amazement. Any minute I expected one of them to pipe up and say, “Well, let me look it up on my smart phone”. But no.

So instead, I took my own iPhone from my pocket and said,  while stepping carefully away and out the door, “Uh, thank you. I will look it up on my phone”. And I did.

As president of the Oregon Roadside Council, Honeyman worked with Samuel Boardman, Oregon’s first Superintendent of State Parks in the 1920s and 1930s, to preserve Oregon coastal lands.

Thank you, Wikipedia.

I might repeat the exercise at my current campground , which has “Umpqua” in the name. I certainly hope that the response is “The Umpqua were an indigenous people of present-day Oregon”, and not, “I dunno. Maybe  something to do with Oompa Loompa’s”?

NOTE: I was genuinely interested in the question I posed to the Honeyman campground hosts. I met Jessie M’s great-grandaughter this summer, also with the last name “Honeyman”. She was a campground host in Idaho. I asked her for a couple referrals to area places — laundromats for instance. In each case she and her husband immediately looked it up or made a phone call on my behalf. Stellar.  Funny the difference in people.

NOTE2: Jessie M. Honeyman was a “she”.