The Poop Scoop

Often while riding, I return covered in debris. Typically in the form of mud, sometimes bird-doo, dead worms, road dust etc. Today I was on a trail shared by horses...now you know where this is going. I inadvertently rode through a dried Saratoga Chip otherwise known as horse manure--oh for those days of long full fenders. This reminded me of an incident from childhood that caused me to laugh in fond remembrance.

My folks purchased a pop-up trailer when we were kids and we were avid campers. I think we all enjoyed being outdoors and having some freedom to roam the campgrounds, freedom that we didn't normally enjoy at home. On one such trip, we were driving down a country road on a sunny day on our way to Keuka Lake State Park--one of our favorite spots. We did not have air conditioning (in fact I don't recall that my folks had AC in a car until we all left home) so nature's air conditioning was being fully employed--ie. all of our windows were down.

We were passing a farm and the honey-dew wagon (as my parents called it) had just crossed the road. An oncoming car, hit the fresh manure and saturated us. It was all over the car, all over the camper, and I believe on some of our clothing. That it was not in anybody's teeth was amazing. Not to be deterred we landed in downtown Penn Yan and went straight to a car wash. We washed the stink away, but the memory lives on as I was reminded today.