Creagh

Off to Jackson

It was the first time Ben had been on a big bus or on an airplane. He was about to do both. He was shaking inside but he maintained a cool, unconcerned attitude on the outside. He did not talk so much so as not to give himself away to others.
Little did he know that nobody was paying him a lick of attention, but he just had to let the inexperience of travel wear off and then he would feel comfortable around all these new people.
He did not know how he had gotten so lucky and unlucky on the same day.
What a favorable thing to happen in the middle of the wintertime for a group of kids of forest employees to get to go on a ski trip. It was no problem for Ben to miss school since his mother was his teacher. He could enjoy this perk of being home schooled.
Colorado, of all places. He had been to see his Grandmother Farley several times in Kansas, but he had never been so far west nor in as mountainous a place as Colorado. And, he was going without his parents. He thought that was a good thing.
When he considered it, cold chills went through his body. He wanted that Colorado high that John Denver sang about. John Denver was a singer of his dad’s time, but Ben had heard “Colorado High” more times than he could name. He was actually going to be on one of those mountains to breathe in the clean, cold air there.
This ski trip was a great opportunity. Never mind that he could not ski. None of the kids going on this trip could ski. Where could they ski on the flat land of Southern Mississippi?
Living remotely in the forest left few opportunities for Ben to earn money for this once-in-a-lifetime trip. Yet he became resourceful at offering his help to older campers in the forest. The forest campground was his home, and his house was a travel trailer.
He frequently got a tip of a few dollars when he stacked wood around someone’s trailer or motor home. Other times, he offered to clean the top of a motor home or to climb a ladder to free the windshields of bugs or dust or mud. Before it was time to leave, he had a nice little stack of money in his box of keepsakes.
Granny Farley had found a warm ski bib and jacket in a thrift shop in Kansas where people feel the winter a little more deeply than kids from warmer climates would. His mama found some woolen socks and warm gloves at a Mississippi garage sale from an Alaskan who moved south and realized those items were not needed any more. These kids would rent the skis and other necessities. They were ready.
That pretty much ends the favorable part of the story.
The unfavorable thing happened when the day came to board the bus for the Jackson airport.