I made an exception the other day; actually two exceptions. I spoke to someone in the RV park. He was walking a friendly-looking dog, which might have made a good playmate for my younger dog. We started to have a nice conversation, and then the man hit me with the classic RV campground line, "I'm leaving tomorrow." Why do I even bother, I asked myself as I walked away.

In fact I usually don't bother. But then it feels a little bad to walk by newcomers without acknowledging their existence. It probably shouldn't, anymore than not speaking to everybody who walks by at a busy airport. The transient RVer: if it's Tuesday, it must be the Grand Canyon.

The funny thing is that I remember being mobile and pulling into an RV park, half-full of apparent residents, who I generously referred to as Yoostabees. They seemed so unfriendly. I thought that the (usually elderly) Yoostabees at Escapee parks were so unfriendly to travelers that it contributed to dropping out of that organization.

These days, I understand the old farts' apparent unfriendliness. When I occasionally talk to a transient, usually because of their dog, I start to brace myself for the 'leaving tomorrow' line. It's reminiscent of what a younger single man goes through when he starts to converse with an interesting woman, and he steels himself for the 'we' bomb that she drops just after the conversation starts to get interesting.

The second exception was also a dog owner. She was a newbie retiree who was half-panicked about not having enough to do. I tried to remember if I ever went through that. Not really. If people are worried about not having enough to do, it is because they have been plugged into the Busy-Machine for so many decades that they have forgotten how to get interested in things on their own. How long has it been since they undertook any challenge not immediately connected with their job? They have become their job.

Somebody like that should start building a retirement house out of sticks and bricks. It will keep them busy.