Cleaning the cabin of Benjamin Perkins

I have been to visit the Bluff Fort again. We make this pilgrimage every time a new set of grandkids come to visit.
My too kind and loving wife comes from the second wife of Benjamin Perkins - Sarah. So, we have roots in San Juan County at least as deep as the Hole-in-the-Rock that ol’ Ben helped blast into existence.
We are driving down to “the Fort” and my too kind and loving wife starts in with the stories about ancestors.
I try to add to the story; you know, make them a little more entertaining and interesting by adding colorful witty commentary.
I am silenced with a glare that would melt two plates of steel together as good as any welder could hope for.
She just doesn’t appreciate my humor. So I let the stories stand, although I am sure I could make them better.
We go into “the Fort” and always start at the concession stand for some ice cream because we have been in the car for an hour and the only way she can get me to go again to “the Fort” is bribe me with a treat.
Of course, the grandkids are always up for ice cream. They get a pineapple swirl ice cream cone the size of a bucket and I ask for an ice-cold Pepsi.
When I asked for the Pepsi, the Sister Missionary working the window looks at me like I had asked her if she wanted to see my “Life is Good” tattoo above my belly button.
But to her credit, she recovered nicely and said she would have to check in the back to see if they had any.
After, the ice cream and my warm Pepsi, my too kind and loving wife starts the tour. We pan for a little gold to get in the spirit of things.
She likes to walk around the cabins in a clockwise manner so that the last cabin will be the Benjamin Perkins cabin. A crescendo of sorts.
She starts easy and simple and talks about the last wagon and how the obedient kids sat on a blanket at the top of the Hole-in-the-Rock and waited with an angel while mom and dad risked life and limb getting the wagon to the bottom.
We have a picture in our living room of that very scene, so I am pretty sure it is true.
Eventually, my too kind and loving wife will get teary eyed telling the story about Grandma Alberta and the accident with the canning pickles story.
These heartwarming faith building stories go on and on, but it aways ends with how she saved me from being a bum and that Grandpa Torres would probably have ended up as a horse thief or in prison or hanging from a rope had it not been for her “stickie-ta-tudy”.
And how she always knew there was good in me, so she didn’t give up on me. The jury is still out on that. But you can see why I would like to add to the narrative.
But this isn’t about how they had to use the wash and rinse cycle about a dozen times to wash away all my boyhood dirt.
And it isn’t about how I became a republican and held down a job. This story is about how just as my too kind and loving wife started in on the Alberta and canning pickles story my young granddaughter got sick and barfed right there in the Benjamin Perkins cabin on a rug.
I know I have thought, but never said out loud, “if I have to hear these stories one more time I think I will barf.” So, I was mostly proud of my granddaughter.
I knew that Great Grandpa Ben would understand and would be proud of us for dragging our grandkids to talk about the old days and sacrifices made so our grandkids could have cell phones and roll their eyes at stories about people that were at least as old as Moses.
Of course, I had to step outside, so I didn’t start laughing or barfing.
I am a sympathy barfer. My too kind and loving wife made me go tell “the Fort” missionaries about our little mishap, which I did.
They sent me back with a bucket, some cleaner and rubber gloves. Her exact words were, “You clean it as best you can and we will check it later and hose the rug off if necessary.”
So that is how I came to clean Benjamin Perkins cabin at “the Fort”.
I can tell you secondhand pineapple swirl ice cream tested my faith as much as blasting a hole in a rock.