Recently I have noticed that I stink, I always kind of stunk, but now it’s a new odor that is inescapable. Now, could some of this be attributed to the average heat index this summer being 97 degrees, I’d like to think that is the primary reason. Unfortunately, along with your earlobes, testicles, and nose growing as you age (at least for men, I’ve done no research on what happens to the labia as their owner ages) you also stink more.

Old people really do have a chemically-distinct odor. Like other body odors, this “old person smell” is produced when chemicals from the skin glands get broken down into small odorous molecules that waft away into the air. … In 2000, Japanese researchers found that people’s concentration of 2-nonenal increased with age.

My research has led me to the conclusion that there is not a whole lot that can be done to combat the smell either. There are minor lifestyle changes that can be made such as eating a clean diet and not consuming alcohol but it’s a case of the cure being worse than the disease in my mind. I’d rather stink and drink than eradicate my old man smell and have to remain sober for the rest of my life. An alternative to changing my lifestyle would be to always have someone stinkier than me around, something that is typically the case when I have to be in the presence of my clients who are incarcerated, but probably not an ideal alternative.

On top of the old man smell I have also noticed my patience for anyone and anything has decreased to a level that I may need to engage in anger management classes. While saggy balls and inordinately large ear lobes are problematic, when you break it down, if that part of the aging process kicks in, it would primarily impact me. However, my patience, or lack there of, has wide ranging implications for everyone I come across. Just recently I was trying to get a pair of bikes into our bike rack and the straps that were suppose to hold them down wouldn’t strap down tight onto the bike rack. As I began to lose my mind Shirley walked by and commented on how I have no patience as she took over and was able to secure the bikes down. In my defense the heat index was similar to what you would find at the center of the Sun so me melting down even quicker than normal was somewhat defensible.

Enough about me though, and my problems, let’s focus on something much more positive, camping. I was skeptical when I decided it was time to actually fulfill one of Shirley’s dreams that didn’t involve her job, but buying a motor home may have actually been the right call. Now, up until last week the only place the motor home had been used for lodging was in our driveway when Shirley and the kids stayed in it a couple times (it was glorious having the entire bed and house to myself) and when she took it to her parent’s marina in Whitehall and her aunt’s house in Fremont. Work has been slower than a Saturday night in Salt Lake City so I decided to book an overnight camping trip near Muskegon. I loaded the kids up last week Wednesday and we hit the road, leaving Shirley behind to work. As I began driving I instantly realized that the mirrors were set up for Shirley meaning I couldn’t see shit. Instead of pulling over and fixing the mirrors, I kept on keeping on and was able to make it to the campground without driving anyone off of the highway because they made the mistake of being in my blind spot (which was a rather large spot).

When we got there I set up camp, which consisted of backing the motor home into the spot and plugging in the electric. In hindsight it was a huge mistake to make camping at Duck Creek RV resort our first true camping experience. First of all, it was $70 for one night, second of all the place was the Taj Mahal of RV parks. It had a full length basketball court, pickle ball, shuffle board, a pool (the hot tub was closed, fucking Whitmer) and a lake with all kinds of self propelled water craft that could be rented. On top of that, they had an 18 hole mini golf course that looked far more challenging than both the east and west course at Craig’s Cruisers. It was fairly obvious every other camping experience was going to be unsatisfactory when held up in the light of the Duck Creek RV resort.

The kids and I initially hit the pool but quickly determined that the lake was the way to go. Eventually we made our way back to the motor home that was conveniently located near the playground, and this wasn’t just any run of the mill campground play area, it was state of the art. The kids headed over to the playground as I stayed back and had a beer. Suddenly I realized why camping was so great, there were kids every where and you’d have to be a sociopath not to be able to make friends in this environment. Sure enough, Aiden eventually came back with a friend who had they needed to recast the young version of Forest Gump for a sequel, would have landed the role no problem. Fortunately, even Aiden realized the kid would be a parasite if he kept hanging with him and was eventually able to rid himself of the weirdo.

Shirley joined us after dinner and immediately chastised me for the unorganized nature of the motor home which I found ironic since she is the primary reason for the disorganized nature of our entire lives. Fortunately she didn’t use the phrase “we” when referring to the need to organize the camper. This is common for her to do when something needs to be done and I’m the one who she thinks should do it. She ended up hooking up the water, the sewer (with my help) and getting everything put away in the RV. The remainder of the night was uneventful and the next morning I texted my buddy about playing tennis. Yes, the guy I have been playing tennis with all summer was camping with his family the same campground, coincidence? Probably not and we made our way to the local courts where I was defeated 6-4, 7-5, 7-5, it’s been a common theme all summer where I miss a few key plays during the match while completely out playing him only to drop set after set because I am not mentally strong enough to prevail.

After hitting the lake again opportunity knocked for a shot at redemption. My tennis nemesis was at the shuffleboard courts with his son Harrison who had spent the previous week dedicating himself to the art of shuffle board at the CRC conference grounds (it’s the Christian Reformed campground, if I ever want to relive the trauma of my childhood I will camp there) averaging roughly 6 hours a day playing shuffleboard. Aiden was with me as we approached and asked if he could play. My buddies step mom gave Aiden her cue and he made a number of feeble attempts at getting the puck to the other side with his cue. Meanwhile, Harrison was dialed in and scoring points like James Harden in a meaningless regular season game. It was fairly obvious that Aiden would be no match for Harrison, especially after telling him no less than nine times that the cue had to be directly up against the puck for him to have any chance of landing a cue in the scoring zone. After every time I implored him to do it the right way he would wind up with the cue a foot behind the puck and fail miserably. “Where is Parker? he’s my only shot at beating this Harrison kid, go get your brother!”

To be honest I think Parker just showed up, but I immediately threw him into the fire and ignored Aiden’s requests to continue playing. It took Parker a couple of Shuffles (not sure what you call it when you propel the puck with your cue) to get the hang of it but his hand eye coordination is top notch just like his old man’s. It was neck and neck the entire way and as I cheered Parker on while giving him a few pointers he said “I don’t really care if I win” that was even more deflating to hear than if they had told me he liked Shirley better than me, and made me question his lineage. (I picked up one of those home DNA kits, just waiting on the test results to come back) Unfortunately, Harrison was the Michael Jordan of shuffleboard and I could easily see him punching whomever out if they stood in the way of him getting to 75 first (that’s what you play to in shuffleboard).

My last hope was beating my buddy in shuffleboard. I had toyed with the thought of playing Harrison but losing to him would have been much more than my already fragile ego could take. I got out to a pretty substantial lead only to see it disappear faster than the free samples at Costco. I was ahead 68-65 only to see my buddy nail two shuffles of 8 to my one shuffle of 7 with me having the last shuffle. In my mind I needed to knock off one of his 8’s but in hindsight all I really needed to do was score a 7 or better which would have been the easier thing to do. I failed miserably in my attempt to knock his puck off and lost a heartbreaker. Initially, when my buddy told me his kid loved shuffleboard I poo pooed it while claiming shuffleboard is lame. Turns out anything that has a competitive aspect to it will easily peak my interest. The good news is now I have something to look forward to when I retire, actually a number of things besides saggy balls including but not limited to shuffleboard, pickle ball, and early bird specials.

The next stop on the Jansma camping tour was three ponds camp ground in Allegan and Shirley was responsible for getting the motor home through this leg of the journey so I could head back to play 18 much needed holes of golf. As I skated out of the RV park part of me wished I had opted for doubles pickle ball, Parker and I would have been a formidable duo.

As indicated in my previous blog Aiden and Parker were given the ultimate punishment a parent can give these days for almost turning our house into the towering inferno, 30 days of no devices. Now, at first I though Shirley was nuts, by punishing the kids she was punishing us in a round about way. However, after they grew accustom to the idea of no devices, it was like we had two brand new kids. Granted, in the early days of their device free life they would still try to snatch our phones every once in a while, like recovering crack addicts teetering on the edge of relapse, but as time wore on they didn’t even try to swipe our phones. I remember one morning when I couldn’t find my phone and was certain one of the kids had taken it I stormed into the TV room (we still let them watch TV, we aren’t Communist China at the Jansma household) ready to start yelling at them only to find them contently watching TV. As day thirty was approaching our kids become as giddy as if Christmas was right around the corner. The frequency of them mentioning the return of their devices began to steadily increase and there was no way (even though we are the parents and we frequently have changed our minds about things in the past) we could not give them their devices back. Sadly, while we had hoped the thirty day respite from devices and the correlating change in behavior would stick, it didn’t, they are razor focused on one thing, like I am about sex, they are consumed by their devices, rarely does a thought not involving devices come into their heads. (unfortunately for Shirley, it’s gotten worse now that there are no sports, I use to think about sex 98% of the time now it’s 99.9%).

On Tuesday, the day they were reunited with their devices Parker had a birthday party in the afternoon so it was just Aiden and I when I got home. I asked him if he wanted to go to Craig’s Crusiers and he came up and hugged me while saying yes and proclaimed I was the best dad ever! Wow, the devices had already made my Aiden completely delusional, part of me hoped they would almost start the house on fire again so we would have an excuse to take them away and keep them from completely losing their minds. Regardless of Aidens over estimation of me as a parent, Craig’s Cruisers felt like a good idea at the time, but it’s one of those things, like going to a Chinese Buffet, that seems like a good idea when you think of it but after you enter and pay you realize you have made a huge mistake. I am assuming that Craig’s Cruisers, along with pretty much every business, has had to make concessions on their prices to get people to come back through their doors and it was only $20 per wristband for two hours of fun. The bumper boats were first and Aiden kept squirting me with the water cannon mounted on his boat. Go Karts were next and Aiden and I both had our own kart.

My kart sputtered out of the gate and I was concerned that every kart on the course would go blowing by me until I realized that all of them went roughly the same speed, not able to top 8 mph, and that this was about the driver’s skill level not how fast you could go. The first couple laps Aiden was no where to be found but I eventually lapped him and when I approached him he ran into me out of panic when I started yelling his name and driving towards him. Staying near him for the final laps was not an option due to the fact that he drives a go kart like a 90 year old women on the way to church. Besides, there was a 13 year old girl who thought she could pass me so it was Game On! I thwarted her every move the entire way, she had one last chance in the home stretch to get past me but I was like Dale Earnhardt at Daytona (not the one where he died, but one of the many he won) and fended her off and came into the garage victorious.

As we walked away from the track Aiden asked me if we could leave, we had been there for roughly 13 minutes, his exuberance for Craig’s Cruisers had taken a serious hit. I asked him why he wanted to leave and he indicated that he wasn’t any good at driving go karts. He explained to me that he couldn’t reach the brake very well to which I responded “whoa, whoa, whoa, you don’t use the brake when you are in a Kart, it’s throttle all the way, you have to regulate your speed with the throttle.” He still wasn’t that interested in sticking around but he was cool with hitting the links so we headed over to the mini golf course. I had heard that the East course has an Augusta feel to it and the West Course is more like Pebble Beach. We decided to hit the east course due to the fact that there was a back up on the first tee on the West Course.

My expectations were low for Aiden and he brought them down even further, I’ve seen people kick a golf ball with more accuracy than he had with an actual putter which was disappointing because I was having the round of my life (ended up shooting 3 under, possibly a course record, the girl in the clubhouse seemed clueless when I asked her if my score entitled me to have my name put on some type of plaque or something) and Aiden’s inability to golf hampered his ability to appreciate what a stick his old man is on the astroturf. Eventually I decided that I needed to incentivize him to keep him focused and told him that if he managed to muster a hole in one we could get shakes from Chick-fil-A. While the promise of an Oreo shake for an ace on the remaining holes had him trying harder, the results weren’t any better. When we finished 18 I told him we could leave after we hit the track one more time. I lapped him again and as we headed to the parking lot I was conflicted, we still had at least an hour left on our wrist bands, being Dutch, when you have unlimited use of something you use that something no matter how miserable of an experience it is. That being said, and even though I was leaving an hour of unlimited “fun” on the table, what was important was that Aiden and I had had fun together making the trip and the money spent almost worth it, besides I was really staring to crave an Oreo shake.