The Census Taker

by Donna Schoenkopf

I had just spent an hour with my loppers cutting out some pokey scratchy brush that was growing under the oak trees near the pond because I realized with a shock about a month ago that if I didn’t do something quick, I’d be completely overgrown by plant life out here at Chigger Lake.

This wasn’t my original plan—cutting brush. I had decided before I even moved here that I would take care of my “lawn” by weed whacking it once in a while. The rest I was going to let Mother Nature take care of. I liked it all natural. It’s real purdy.

But that nasty patch of brush was growing by leaps and bounds and if I didn’t address the problem I would have no more open field of wildflowers and sunshine stretching out before me as I looked down my hill to the pond.

And, AND! Mother Nature had seeded not only brush, but TREES on that sunny slope and if I wasn’t careful I’d have no view whatsoever. Just thick trees everywhere.

It is really, really amazing how quickly a forest regrows where it was once cut down by Man or blown down by tornadoes. Ahhhh, Life.

So I hacked away and lopped away and got scratched and sweaty and returned to my cool and beautiful housie and was just about to strip out of my sweaty, dirty clothes for my fabulous reward of a cool and delicious outdoor shower, when I heard a vehicle coming down my gravel drive.

I can count on one hand the vehicles which have come down my drive the past several months.

Nobody comes out here.

Which is why I had no bra on when I went out to work in the brush. (Have YOU ever tried to work in stifling hot humidity, and been fat, AND had to wear a bra? It is not something you want to do. Trust me.)

I looked at the white pickup that was winding through the trees and thought about my flopping breasts.

Oh, crap.

I looked hard to see who was driving and it was a woman, so I didn’t have to run and grab a bra and try to get it on my sweaty old body. It would have been impossible anyway. Have YOU ever tried to put a bra on while your body was wet? Yes? Then you know what I mean.

So, as is my wont, I slid open the sliding glass door to stand out front and wave a welcome to my visitor, whoever she might be.

She waved back and parked behind my car and climbed out and I went up to her truck and said hello.

She introduced herself and said she was a census taker.

I was thrilled! (I love federal employees.)

We were both big smiles and I invited her in.

Now, you should know that when you drive through the trees down my gravel driveway and you first see my house, it looks like a large steel storage shed. It’s white, rectangular and has a scrubby yard around it, so when my very own census taker walked through my door she gasped, as almost every single visitor has, when she saw the interior of the house. It IS pretty wonderful, I have to admit. But by now I’m not as surprised as I used to be that people find it a fine piece of work.

And I’m paraphrasing now, but she said something on the order of, “This is EXACTLY my taste. This is great!” And was very complimentary.

I thanked her and we began our business, or should I say our conversation, because it was the end of the day and I probably was her very last person and she could spare some time.

She told me that she was originally from Oklahoma but had moved as a child to Hemet, California, that town of 70,000 plus out there in Riverside County, due south of Beaumont. It’s high desert, I think.

As an adult she worked in the corporate remodeling business, which put her all over the map in Southern California, and spent a lot of her time driving.

And then, because of a number of reasons, all of which she told me about, she brought her whole family back to Oklahoma. They all live a few miles just south of me on a big ranch. A grammaw and grampaw and kids and a grandchild on the way and a husband. And it’s summer. And hot and humid. And she’s dealing with menopause.

She told me she never talks about having lived in California, and she gave me a knowing look. I do know why. Being from California is an automatic negative to people around here. I remember being ten years old with my cousin in Montana just after my family left Hawaii and listening to said cousin disparaging Californians. I had never been to California, and neither had my cousin, but after she finished telling me all about what stupid creeps those Californians were, I didn’t like them either. It was pretty severe. I think Texans and Californians bear the brunt of ill will from people who are NOT from there.

I, on the other hand, LOVE telling people I’m from California. It is my duty as a Big Mouth to put the lie to commonly held prejudices. So WHAT if people in this state openly say to my face, “Oh, the land of fruit and nuts!” And laugh and feel superior. I want them to know that Californians have a human face.

I feel that I am Oklahoma’s own private allergy shot against prejudice ... you know, get a little bit for years and years until your poor body has developed a tolerance for whatever it’s allergic to.

This practice of mine, being an acknowledged Californian with strange ideas, has earned me the position of “butt of jokes” when I say and do things that everyone out here knows will result in me having to eat my words.

Like me telling everyone I want my land to be natural and that I don’t want to mow it or weed it or trim it or tame it. And now, here I am trying to beat back the forest. HAH! The joke’s on me! And it’s good for me and for them.

And I think of the country folk out here raising their eyebrows just slightly when I say I’m not going to use pesticides. They don’t contradict me. No, not a word. But THEY know I’m going to be buried in every living kind of biting insect there is. They are just gonna let me experience the whole thing and chuckle knowingly when I show up with scabs all over my legs. (But I’m STILL not going to use pesticides. It’s come down to a matter of pride at this point. I WILL survive.)

But I digress.

The census taker then went on to tell me that she didn’t know I was out here, that there is no record of me anywhere, that she found me by looking at the mailboxes out on the county road and saw an unknown name and address and decided to check it out. She said she was glad to see my homemade sign nailed to the tree at the beginning of the driveway. She wanted to know about my neighbors and I gave her their names and all, and that made her job easier because they weren’t home.

When she told me that no one knew I was out here, I felt somewhat proud and somewhat scared about that fact.

I was an uncounted person.

I felt proud because I was the first person EVER to live here. I really was a pioneer. There is no record at any time of this area being inhabited.

And I felt scared because I felt disconnected from the world. And when you’re disconnected from the world you don’t have the protection of the “herd” and you are in danger. One of the dangers you face is accidentally dying alone by some ridiculous method like choking to death or accidentally cutting your hand off with a chain saw. (Both of these scenarios have come to my mind from time to time, so I am very careful about chewing and refuse to own a chain saw.)

The census taker told me about riding around all day in her truck, meeting people way out in the boonies. She told me about going to Earlsboro and going down remote roads and seeing incredible devastation from the tornadoes that no one knew about. No press, no TV coverage. Just sweeps of destroyed houses and uprooted trees.

She told me how her family had discovered the Severe Weather Alert system on local television stations and how they were riveted to it when tornadoes were popping.

She told me how she had gotten a really good deal on a generator and as long as her family had TV during a power outage, everything was okay. Forget the lights or the refrigerator or anything else. If the TV worked you were connected to the world and you weren’t alone. I knew what she meant.

She and I sat at my dining room table and talked and talked about life and menopause and kids and families and California and Oklahoma and work and play. We liked each other a lot. We traded names and phone numbers.

She just might read about herself in this very story because, like me, she is a writer and I gave her all the pertinents to read FourStory.

I have a brand new friend. A woman from California, here in Oklahoma, making a new life for herself and her family, friendly and open and happy and kind.

Desmon, so named because her mother loved romance novels, blond, blue-eyed, census taker with a broad smile, mother, daughter, sweet person ... you rock.

See you around the neighborhood.

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