A Campsite Called Home

Chapter One

Far below the highway on a crisp September morning, the fog is starting to rise off the Connecticut River as the 1992 Nissan Stanza rumbles across the Interstate 89 bridge that connects New Hampshire and Vermont.

Kerrie Ramsey, still dressed in her green hospital scrubs, keeps one hand on the steering wheel while taking another drag from her Marlboro Light. She glances at the clock above the car's radio. Ten minutes before seven.

Matt, her 17-year-old son, is probably already pacing in the driveway, waiting for her to get home and give him a ride. On Saturdays, the Kmart in West Lebanon wants him at work by 7 a.m. But that is virtually impossible since she rarely leaves Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon before 6:30 on Saturday mornings. A respiratory therapist, Kerrie works the overnight shift because it pays $3 more per hour.

Without flipping on her blinker, Kerrie exits in White River Junction, turning left onto Route 5. She passes farm fields and dirt roads leading to small, middle-class neighborhoods of split level ranches and two-story capes.

She brakes just before the brown, wooden roadside sign carved in the shape of a maple leaf. She swings into the hard-packed dirt driveway covered by pine needles and surveys the scene -- tents, bath towels hanging from a clothesline strung between two trees and a sign next to the restrooms advertising firewood for $2 an armful.

She is home now. The Maple Leaf Camp Grounds, campsite no. 24.

For the last two months, this is where Kerrie and her three sons have lived. Their home is a pop-up camper borrowed from her boss at the hospital and a tent bought at Kmart, where Matt works after school and on weekends.

As she expected, Matt is waiting. Hands in his pockets, he treads back and forth between the camper and picnic table. A high school junior, her oldest son is tall with chalky skin and short, brown hair. As Matt opens the passenger-side door, Kerrie notices the dark circles under his eyes. My boy works too much and doesn't get enough sleep, she tells herself.

"How'd it go?" she asks.

"OK, they're still asleep, I think," Matt replies.

"Thanks."

While she works nights, Matt watches his two younger brothers. Kerrie tries to let him know how much she appreciates the help. If there are any day care centers in the Upper Valley where a single parent can leave a 5-year-old and 11-year-old overnight, she doesn't know about them.

Conversation between mother and son is sparse on the early morning drive to West Lebanon. Kerrie breaks the silence by bringing up their living situation.

"I'm going to look at another place this afternoon," she says.

Staring out the passenger window, Matt doesn't respond. "It's a house in Hartford, close to school," Kerrie continues.

Without raising his voice or looking her way, Matt finally speaks. "Mom, I don't want to hear about any more houses until you have one."

AFTER GETTING OUT OF THE CAR at the campground, Kerrie peers through the trees at the neighboring campsite, No. 3. Nobody seems to be stirring, which is not surprising this early in the morning. Like Kerrie, the single mom who lives there often works nights.

Kerrie glances back at her car's Florida license plate and smiles. Good, she thinks, the vegetable oil is working.

A few days have passed since she rubbed the oil on the metal tag before caking dirt over its expiration sticker. The plate expired months ago, and there was no way to get a Vermont tag without passing a state motor vehicle inspection. With a broken odometer, and no money to fix it, that wasn't going to happen.

Chris and Sam are just getting out of bed when Kerrie opens the door to the camper. Tall and solidly-built, Chris is big for an 11-year-old. He is definitely Kerrie's problem child, slacking off in school and picking fights with his two brothers. Five-year-old Sam is also tall for his age, but Kerrie still thinks of him as her baby. He has big, dark eyes, tiny freckles and straight, chocolate brown hair.

"Hey, guys, you want to watch TV?" Kerrie asks the boys.

She knows this will never win her the PTA's mother-of-the-year award. But she needs a few hours of sleep before starting out again on the apartment-hunting trail and then heading back to the hospital for another 12-hour night shift.

"Can we use Matt's tent?" Chris asks.

"Sure. Just don't tell him."

Matt doesn't like his younger brothers messing with his 27-inch TV, VCR or PlayStation -- all things he has bought with his own money and squeezed into his tent. Sometimes, when he leaves the campground for work he takes the cables from the TV and video machine so his brothers can't use them.

"Mom, I don't want to hear about any more houses until you have one."

Like the fog on the river, her son's frustrated voice continues to swirl in Kerrie's head.

Matt is right, she thinks.

It is unfair to keep lifting his hopes and those of his two brothers. Still, Matt must understand it is not entirely her fault. Several times in recent months Kerrie thought she had finally found a place with a kitchen floor made of linoleum rather than dirt and a shingled roof instead of a canopy of tall pines. But either somebody else had called before her, the apartment was too small, or the rent was too expensive.

Kerrie and the boys have been living at the campground since mid-July.

Before that they were in a Quechee condo, but there was no way she could continue to pay the $850 a month rent, and in the winter, $800-a-month electric heating bills.

So, they moved into the campground, leaving most of their belongings at a Wilder self-storage facility. At $144 a week, the campground was affordable and the idea of roasting marshmallows every night appealed to the boys.

In the beginning, the boys considered it an adventure. They ran extension cords from the campsite's electrical outlet to the TV and video game machine. She agreed to let them get cable for $12 a week. When school started in September, the Hartford school bus driver added the campground to his route.

At first, Kerrie enjoyed it, too. After suffering through sticky, humid summers in Arkansas and Florida for much of her 13-year marriage, cool, breezy nights under the stars in Vermont made for a welcome break.

Nearly 1 1/2 years had passed since Kerrie loaded up a U-Haul truck bound for Vermont, leaving Florida and her husband behind. Neither she nor Rick had yet gone to the trouble or expense of making the end of the marriage official by filing for divorce. But she could never imagine them getting back together. She'd had her fill of late-night bickering, their stacks of unpaid credit card bills, and the good old Southern boy routine.

As bad as it was in Florida at the end, she never imagined she and the boys living in a campground, either. If she had, she never would have told Rick he could keep the family's camping gear.

BEFORE COLLAPSING onto one of the camper's beds, Kerrie picks up a copy of the newspaper and turns to the classified ads.

After all these months, Kerrie is still amazed by the Upper Valley's housing crunch. Not only are apartments and rental houses in short supply, they're expensive. She scans down the page. A two-bedroom apartment in West Lebanon is advertised for $875 a month. In White River Junction, there is a two-bedroom for $775. She reads the bottom of the ad: non-smoking. Forget it, she thinks, considering the pack of Marlboro Lights she smokes a day.

In Hanover, where working families must compete with Dartmouth students for rental units, the rents are even higher. The one listing for Hanover is a one-bedroom condo. Great location, the fine print says: $1,200 per month. There is a four-bedroom house available in Hanover -- for $2,250 a month.

She puts the paper down on the table. Settling into the bed, she hears the sound of TV cartoons coming from Matt's tent.

Thank God, she thinks while shutting her eyes, Matt didn't take the cables to work with him.

A SHORT DISTANCE down the dirt road that winds through the campground, there are signs of life at campsite No. 12.

A short, middle-aged woman with long, brown hair lifts the flap of one of two tents pitched side-by-side under the trees. She coughs deeply, and lights her first cigarette of the day.

She gathers up pine cones and birch bark to go along with a few sticks of kindling. She tosses the wood into the rusted rim of a truck wheel.

Robin moved to the campground shortly before Kerrie in early July. Like her neighbor, Robin brought a family with her. In all, there are three generations at campsite no. 12. Robin's daughters -- Kate and Margrette -- and her 3-year-old granddaughter, Olivia.

This Saturday morning is like most others. Robin is the first to get up, joined quickly by Olivia. Her daughters, who work nights at McDonald's, sleep in until they can no longer ignore the rumble of tractors operating at the nearby wholesale nursery.

With Olivia standing behind her, Robin leans down to start the campfire with her cigarette lighter.

Throughout the summer, and now into September, the campfire has burned with ardent purpose. On damp mornings, the glowing coals warm their coffee. In the afternoon, a pot of soup or water for washing dishes bubbles over the flame. After dark, the rising heat takes the chill from the air and provides relief from swarming mosquitoes.

On nights she is not working, their neighbor Kerrie often pulls up a lawn chair by the fire while her youngest son, Sam, and Olivia roast marshmallows. The two families take turns buying the daily newspaper, sharing the section most important to them -- the ads listing places for rent.

It is only natural that the two families have bonded over the last few months. For both, the campground is home. They eat, sleep and bathe here. Most of all, they look for ways to escape from here.

Robin doesn't mind the campground so much, but she wishes a better life for her daughters and granddaughter. Kate, in particular, has had a difficult few years. Bright, witty and possessing a passion for reading, she made it to college. But any chance of earning her degree was put on hold by the birth of her daughter.

Kate just needs a break, Robin tells herself, a bit of luck that will lift her out of the $8-per-hour McDonald's job and life in a tent.

Scrounging together the first month's rent and security deposit for an apartment would be easier if Olivia's father made his child support payments. Money wouldn't be so tight, either, if it hadn't rained so much this summer. Each passing storm brought more water into the leaky tents, soaking the cardboard boxes serving as dressers for their clothes. It's tough to save money for an apartment when you're spending $40 a week washing away mildew at the coin-operated laundry.

BY LATE SEPTEMBER, summer has slipped into fall. Still, the sun beats brightly enough to warm Kate's face as she sits by the smoldering campfire, immersed in a science fiction paperback. She does not hear her younger sister come out of the tent.

"It's almost time for work," says Margrette.

"Already?" Kate replies.

They are due at McDonald's by mid afternoon, 45 minutes from now.

At 24, Kate is four years older than her sister, but with similar builds and round faces with blue eyes, the two are often mistaken for twins.

Kate rises from her chair to stir the pot of chicken and dumpling stew simmering over the campfire. She scans the picnic table for a plastic bowl and silverware.

"This looks clean," she says, picking up a spoon. "Well, sort of."

Margrette climbs into the back seat of the Toyota to retrieve her green McDonald's uniform. To make sure their work clothes stay dry, Kate and Margrette store them in the car. Unlike their tents, the car does not leak, not yet anyway.

The two sisters work the closing shift, 3 p.m. to 11 p.m., at the McDonald's on Route 12A in West Lebanon, while their mother cares for Olivia.

Until earlier this summer, Margrette lived in Arizona. Homesick and running low on cash, she took a bus to White River Junction, where her mother was waiting at the station. After three days on a bus, Margrette was glad to hear that the campground had showers.

"Make it quick," Robin said. "Your sister has told McDonald's that you'll be down there this afternoon to fill out a job application."

Ten minutes later, the entire family piled into the rusting Toyota for the short drive down Interstate 91 to McDonald's.

"Kate, are you sure there's a job for me?" Margrette asked from the back seat.

Without turning, Kate replied. "Do you have a pulse?"

LOCATED AT THE CENTER of the Upper Valley's fast-food alley, the West Lebanon McDonald's is one of the chain's New England jewels. Close to the junction of Interstates 89 and 91, the restaurant attracts a steady stream of tourists, shoppers and commuters.

From her perch inside McDonald's drive-through window, Kate can see the massive tour bus making a wide turn into the restaurant's parking lot.

She shouts to the other workers, "We're about to get slammed."

Under McDonald's management policy, no more than 90 seconds should pass between the time a customer steps up to the front counter and the time he receives his order. To improve their odds of meeting that standard, Kate and her co-workers have developed a drill.

When a bus pulls into the parking lot, Kate asks a co-worker to go outside and get a better look. If it's a busload of girls, they toss more Chicken McNuggets into the deep fryer. If senior citizens are on the way to the door, they stock up on fish sandwiches. And if it's a bus filled with high school football players, they pile red meat onto the grill.

She can also tell the day of the week without looking at the calendar. On Fridays, pay day for many people, mothers and fathers pull out $50 bills to pay for their children's suppers. By the following Thursday, they are digging into their pockets and purses for loose change. "You can see people get broker and broker as the week goes by," says Kate.

Gordon Wright, the McDonald's manager, describes Kate as one of his best employees. In her nine months with the restaurant she has never called in sick or failed to show for a shift. Over the summer, Kate took a management class at the restaurant. Of the 10 employees who signed up for the class, she was the only one to finish. Now, she's advanced to a shift manager's class that meets twice a month in Concord.

"If she sticks with it, she could end up at Hamburger University," says Wright, himself a graduate of McDonald's managerial school in suburban Chicago.

As the most recent busload of passengers files off the bus and into the restaurant, Kate notices most are teenage girls. More Chicken McNuggets, she tells herself.

AT THE CAMPGROUND, most visitors are vacationers who stay a night or two before moving on. Now, in early October, the number of campers dwindles. But the two families remain.

The days are shorter; the nights colder. Swirling winds signal approaching winter, dropping sticky pine needles into coffee cups left on the picnic tables.

For Kerrie and her three boys, the campground has been home for 72 days and nights. As she opens the creaky door to the campground's washroom on a frosty morning, the $144 she pays each week for the campsite no longer seems a bargain. She flicks on the small heater, pacing back and forth on the plywood floor, waiting for the uninsulated room's temperature to climb enough for her to venture into the shower stall. Next door in the men's washroom, there is no heater. But her two older boys opt for cold stalls rather than suffer the indignity of using the women's room.

As the cold set in, Matt has grudgingly abandoned his tent, joining his mother and two younger brothers at night in the camper with its electric heater.

Tonight, the coldest so far, Sam quickly brushes his teeth at the outdoor faucet before hustling into the camper. After getting into bed, Kerrie pulls two blankets up to his chin.

"Mom, where's Brave Bear?" he asks.

Brave Bear is Sam's favorite stuffed animal. The teddy bear was originally given to Kerrie's mother when she was in the hospital battling lung cancer. After her mother died, Kerrie gave the bear to Sam.

"I'm sorry, hon," says Kerrie. "Brave Bear is in storage."

The boy frowns. "Don't worry, we'll find him," his mother tells him.

"That's OK," he replies.

"Good night, Sam. I love you."

Outside the camper, Kerrie lights a cigarette. She begins heading through the tall pines to the pay phone. She steps inside the booth and dials 870 -- the area code for northern Arkansas.

Kerrie's husband lives in the foothills of the Ozarks. Rick Ramsey is a mountain of a man, standing more than 6-feet tall and weighing nearly 400 pounds. Rick was stationed by the Navy in Charlestown, S.C., where Kerrie had lived since she was a teenager, when they met and married a year later. After Rick left the service, he took a job repairing copier machines. Although he didn't earn much money, these were happy times. Rick coached the boys' baseball teams and helped out with their Scout troops.

But by April 1999, the marriage had crumbled. Kerrie bolted north and Rick moved from Florida back to Arkansas, where he grew up.

On the phone tonight, his tone is acid.

"You still living at that campground?" he asks.

"Yes."

"Unbelievable."

She can hear a heavy sigh. She waits for him to make his usual smart-ass remark, something like, "why can't you even get your life together enough to find a place with indoor plumbing?"

But it never comes. Instead, he says, "maybe you should think about sending the boys to live with me."

Kerrie is silent. She knew Matt would never go. He would be finished with high school in a year and a half.

"Chris and Sam?" she asks.

"At least they'd have a roof over their heads," Rick says.

Kerrie is silent.

"Think about it," Rick says.

"I will."

She hangs up the phone and lights another cigarette. Slowly, she walks back to the camper, frozen pine needles crunching beneath her feet. Inside, she picks up a copy of that morning's newspaper for the first time. Robin, Kate's mother, must have dropped it off. Kerrie turns to the classified section.

Near the bottom of page nine, Kerrie stops at the listing for a two-bedroom home on Route 4 in Quechee. The monthly rent is not mentioned.

Two bedrooms is not ideal. It means Kerrie will have to sleep in the living room. But that would be OK. The campground is closing for the winter in a couple of weeks.

She circles the ad.

"I need to call in the morning," she tells herself. "Early, right after Sam goes to school."

His father will want an answer soon.