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On the frequent trips to Baltimore to pick up water Sebastien was able to see his sister and we would take short adventures for the month. The truck was the only warehouse I could afford. As the Fourth of July approached I was told I would no longer be able to keep my camp site since the National Seashore Park became inundated with tourists to help feed the mosquitoes. The State Park next door sprayed but also had limitations on length of stay. I lost touch with Sebastien and Stephanie. The extra effort it took to find a campground that was affordable, maintain inventory, service new and old customers, spend time with Mom and block out the rest of the world did just that—block out the rest of the world.
A quick storm shredded the big tent that had become too cumbersome to carry so I bought a compact that could be stashed easily and I could move around so Iris wasn’t seen as a permanent resident in anyone’s primitive section. Most of the campgrounds were for campers and RVs. I camped out until October when most of the camp grounds that allowed tents closed for the season. I drove a taxi in Baltimore on weekends and made deliveries a few days a week parking outside the DUCK INN and sleeping between the stacked crates. As the winter progressed I began making enough money driving the taxi to where I could afford a motel with off season rates for two days a week. Mom died of liver cancer at the end of March, 1988.

As Spring ramped up the Café was sold; Decker and Felicity found a piece of property outside of Ocean City across Assawoman Bay. He called it DUCK INN and sold beer and crabs. When I made deliveries on the DELMARVA PENINSULA I was allowed to park my truck outside the INN and sleep in the back of the truck with the water jugs in crates stacked to the ceiling on either side of where I nested my sleeping bag.
When the weather finally warmed I found a campsite at the Assateague Island National Park where three dollars a night was affordable. I used a very large eight person tent I had gotten from Damien Rumsford. My mother had taken ill in Baltimore and was diagnosed with lung cancer—she chose to take treatment to give her time to get her affairs in order. The day she came home from the hospital she sat on the couch in her spot with a cat TUTU I had given her on her lap and she suddenly exclaimed, “The flap always goes over the top on the toilet paper roll.”
I spent quite a bit of time in Baltimore but could not let the water business fail so there was no other option for living quarters at the beach as the business expanded and took up more and more of the cash flow. Calling Tom Clancy an asshole to his phone voice did not endear me to anyone.
Rhoda Apple, an old friend and former owner of the Hope Springs Eternal Hotel in downtown Grantsville, Maryland had moved to a suburb of Baltimore after the historic hotel was sold at auction, purchased by an oil company and turned into a gas and go. Rhoda was doing well after cashing out and investing in coffee futures among other things. Rhoda had taken in two teenagers from Paris, France for the summer and thought that they may enjoy spending some time with me. I didn’t understand this since I was living in a tent at the beach and my bald headed Mom was surviving chemo therapy and radiation treatments. Sebastien and Stephanie also spoke very little American. I sold Evian but that was the extent of my French.
Anyway, I picked up the 14 year old Stephanie and the 16 year old Sebastien and gave them a ten cent tour of Baltimore and a two day trip to Ocean City where I introduced them to the library and librarian before dropping them at a customer’s house while I made deliveries. The customer had a pool and had been to Paris recently enough that she spoke of the waxing she had gotten there. At the end of the day we returned to the tent in the cheap, primitive camping area. We walked to the ocean while swatting bugs. We ate by the campfire while swatting bugs. We smeared ourselves in Skin So Soft while swatting bugs. The mosquitoes in the Assateague National Seashore Park were a bit radical for Stephanie and her protective brother suggested we take her back to Baltimore. Sebastien chose to return to the beach and deliver water.