To Dream the Impossible Dream

What does it take to turn a dream into reality?

First, you must believe in yourself and, with a little luck, have others believe in you too.

Ricky Dandelion, the man, the myth, and the legend. I have spoken of him before in the story of Ricky Dandelion and the 100 Yard Hoof.

Ricky and his wife, Venice, live on an eight-acre hobby farm just outside the city limits. On it, they raise some beef animals and grow fruit and vegetables. On the highest point of his grazing field, Ricky built a lean-to loafing shed, mainly for his cattle to shelter in during the summer heat and the heavy winter rains. He also finds it a place of solace where on starry nights he builds a fire and sits looking at the stars while playing his squeeze box as he yodels a sad tune.

This irritates the surrounding neighbors who are sure the coyotes are bothering their chickens.

When Ricky dreams, while leafing through his archive of Popular Mechanics, he imagines that he and Venice find an old school bus, renovate it into a motorhome and travel to the interior of British Columbia to fish the deep, cold, mountain lakes which are teeming with trout. This is why his yodeling songs are so mournful, he knows he is running out of time.

“If you want a project to retrofit a bus, you have my permission,” said Venice as she pirouetted from the stove to the kitchen table with his morning plate of pancakes and grits. Ricky had sheepishly brought up the suggestion.

“If it stops the mournful yodeling on the hill, I’m all for it. Perhaps the chickens will lay again.”

She kissed him weakly, mostly on Thursdays.

Halfway between their house and town was an auto wrecking yard.

“I’ve had my eye on a nice-looking bus at the wrecking yard which I can see from the road,” Ricky said. “It’s buried in the blackberries, and they store parts in it but maybe they’ll give me a deal.”

With a new dream of excitement in his life, Ricky jumped up from the kitchen table and headed to the back door.

Ricky had long since lost the tone in his gluteus maximus muscles. Though he wore a belt, it was not uncommon, at the most inopportune times, for his pants to drop to his knees. This included most Sunday mornings when he ushered for his church.

Venice, humiliated at the thought that all her friends were seeing her husband’s chicken legs under his trap-door underwear, rectified the situation by using Velcro. She would sew one side of the Velcro to the outside tail of his shirts and the other side to the inside beltline of his pants. When the pants were hitched up and the Velcro came together, the shirt held the pants up. Ingenious! The only time the Velcro tore free was when he accidentally lunged forward too quickly.

Ricky drove quickly to the wrecking yard and made the owners an offer for the old bus which they quickly accepted. Also, like a kid in a candy store, he looked through all the boxes stored in the bus for cool stuff for his new motorhome. One interesting find was an altimeter which was originally found on the instrument panel of a wrecked Cessna. The wrecking yard threw it in with the purchase of the bus.

About a week later, the bus was in Ricky’s yard. Getting it started, refilling fluids and the tires, and making sure all the lights worked slowed the process of getting it out of the wrecking yard. It seemed to squeak and smoke a little more than he liked but other than that, it was a keeper.

As the weeks went on, multiple trips to the Army Surplus Store happened to pick up such things as steel framed bunk beds and wool blankets. At the hunting and fishing store he found a wall-tent wood stove which he anchored to the floor putting the stack through the roof. He bought a Coleman camp stove for cooking and, going to a recycled building materials store, he found a porcelain sink and a toilet which he plumbed to empty through a pipe onto the ground. Also from the recycle store, Ricky bought enough used exterior house paint to cover the moss and all school district signage.

Venice, meanwhile, sat for days working the treadle foot on her sewing machine to make curtains and attractive skirting to go around the base of the bunks. Surprisingly, after only one month of renovation, on the 20th of September, the motorhome was ready for its adventure. With the Coleman coolers full of ice, the canoe lashed to the back, and fishing gear tied to the roof, the motorhome left the yard.

Ricky sounded the musical car horn with 46 different funny sounds as he passed friends standing by their mailboxes. Venice, not sharing in Ricky’s audio enthusiasm, lay on her bunk, earbuds in her ears, eyes closed, listening to the latest CD from the New Christy Minstrels. Next destination, Cochin Lake, B.C.

The first little hiccup came when they rolled up to the Canadian border. Ordered to leave the vehicle and come inside so the guards could search the vehicle, they were required to post a bond promising that they would return the motorhome to the US and not leave the bus on some backroad in Canada.

After that was resolved, they headed the bus east toward Hope and then north to Williams Lake.

Ricky had mounted the old Cessna altimeter on the dash next to his seat. Like a new toy, he became fascinated with their changes in altitude. Thinking Venice would also find altitude interesting, he would point out to her, “We just climbed 500 feet. We just dropped 280 feet. Here’s a humdinger, Venice, we just climbed 1200 feet.”

Venice placed her sleep mask on and pushed her earbuds in further.

Surprisingly, the bus only got ten miles to the gallon, not the 35 that the boys from the wrecking yard assured him he would get. Ricky found out the horror of filling a 60-gallon tank with gas that is $1.89/ liter. It was 850 miles to Cochin from his house and 12 hours of driving.

Venice began to complain that the bus was getting cold and the downdraft coming down the smokestack on the wood stove was blowing the fire out, so she bundled in the Army blankets and rocked slowly in her Tennessee Rocker. Ricky decided to put in for the night at a nice campground at Williams Lake.

This was the second hiccup encountered that day, camper prejudice. As Ricky drove through the campground to the manager’s office, he was amazed at the new expensive campers. 30-foot 5th wheelers with three pop-outs being pulled by $90,000 diesel pickups. There was also a complete camping section of $2 and $300,000 pusher motorhome cruisers.

“Whatcha got?” the park manager asked Ricky.

“A bus,” he answered.

The manager stepped out from behind the counter and looked out the window at the bus.

“Uh huh,” he said. “Follow me.”

He hopped in his golf cart and motioned for Ricky to follow. They went slowly through the campground to the very back, next to the dumpsters and tenters.

“This is all we’ve got,” he said. “I hope you aren’t planning to abandon it here.

The next morning after a fine breakfast prepared by Venice, Ricky went outside and took a quick wash-off in the camp shower he had hung from the bow of the canoe. He then emptied the sink and the toilet onto the grass, and they drove away. Next stop, Cochin Lake.

By the time they got to the lake that afternoon, the sun was bright although Ricky wasn’t. There were very few fishermen or campers at the park by the lake, so they picked an ideal campsite and while Venice prepared lunch, Ricky untied the canoe and set it on the shore.

“Give me a yell when lunch is ready, Venice.  I’m going out in the canoe.”

He set his pole, net, and tackle box in the belly of the boat and pushed off from shore, failing to first put on his life jacket. As he sat on the stern seat, hurriedly tying up a lure, the canoe drifted further from shore. There was a slight chop on the surface and Ricky swayed back and forth. Without a doubt, his decision to stand up to cast at that moment set up the Titanic conclusion.

Wobbling in the rocking canoe, he took an abnormally violent cast over the bow. The force of his body bending forward pulled free the Velcro on his shirt from the Velcro on his pants. Without that protection and with his hands both on the pole, his pants quickly dropped to his ankles causing him to lose his balance. The review of his life passing before his eyes as he fell into the lake reminded him that he should get out more often. As the canoe overturned, his poles and tackle sank to the bottom of the lake. The paddle and life jacket floated, albeit away from Ricky. Hanging on the edge of the canoe, he began beating on the side.

Venice had just stepped from the bus with a plate of peanut butter sandwiches and a container of potato salad.

From somewhere in the area she heard, “boom, boom, boom… boom, boom, boom.”

It was a beat that instantly took her back to August 16, 1969, in a place called Bethel, New York. It was a little event that she and a young Ricky attended called Woodstock. Ricky wore a bandana around his long blond hair. His face was unshaven, and he wore round-lens, tinted Lennon glasses. On his tie-dyed tank top was a large Peace symbol. He and everyone else were muddy.

“Boom, boom, boom.”

Everyone at the festival was feeling groovy due to some form of happiness aid.

Venice herself, looking like every other hippie woman amongst the crowd of 450,000, was lost in the beat of the music, quite possibly being elevated by the cloud of secondhand pot smoke.

Now, lost in that memory, she stood by the picnic table, arms over her head, eyes closed, swaying to the beat of the drum.

“Boom, boom, boom…Venice!”

“Boom, boom, boom… Venice?”

She spun around and looked out onto the lake. There was Ricky, clutching the side of the canoe.

By chance, there was a rowboat tied to the dock.

“Hold on Ricky, I’m coming,” she yelled.

Looking at the plate of sandwiches, she picked up one and took two bites. Then she ran to the water.

It may have taken her five minutes to reach Ricky and retrieve the life jacket and paddle. On the way back to shore, she tied the canoe rope to the rowboat and towed it. Ricky, too weak to climb into the rowboat, hung onto the stern and was towed back to shore. This made Venice’s work twice as hard since Ricky’s pants were inflating around his ankles creating a drag shoot.

Later that afternoon, the bus/motorhome was on the road back to Williams Lake to buy more fishing gear.

“And now we’re at 2,573 feet,” Ricky pointed out.

Ricky Dandelion dreamed the impossible dream and made it into reality. He built his motorhome. He filled his ice chests with fish. Life was good.

He stood out on the end of the dock, a flat stone in hand.

“Watch this, Venice. I’m going for my new rock skipping record.”

He arched backwards and let the stone fly with a sidearm throw. This of course tore the Velcro sections apart dropping his pants to his ankles.

There was the sound of the ducks and geese on the water and the herons in the cattails, even the occasional bullfrog. There was one sound that slightly irritated him.

“Quit laughing, Venice!”

More Ricky Stories, “Ricky Dandelion and the 100 Yard Hoof“

* Title photo owner, unknown*

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