Workamper Journal
 

Workampers Turn Life's Lemons Into Lemonade
by Arline Chandler
belsens_1_web.jpg Bob and Jackie Belson are the type of individuals who take lemons and make lemonade. Coming from opposite family backgrounds, they met in Chicago while Bob was in the U.S. Navy. Bob is the youngest of nine siblings. Jackie is an only child. After they married, Bob went to sea and Jackie returned to high school. A daughter and two sons arrived later during the 1950s. In 1969, the Belsons started working together as a couple in the resort and marina business on Kentucky Lake in Tennessee. They also operated a general store 10 miles up the road from the resort. In 1984, a fire wiped out their home and their business. Essentially, they started over managing a Motel 6 property in Brownsville, Texas. On the motel’s parking lot in their spare time, they converted a bus into a motorhome.

In the meantime, they bought a rundown traditional house in a retirement community in Los Fresnos, Texas. But America’s roadways and Workamping adventures called to them. Leaving their Los Fresnos home in the care of a son, they moved into their converted motorhome in 1992.

After so many years of working in tandem, team work comes natural to the Belsons. Gavere Leather’s positions for a couple as manager and assistant manager appealed to them. “We Workamp because we thoroughly enjoy it,” Jackie says, noting that they spend summers managing a Gavere Leather Shop in Six Flags Mid America, near St. Louis, Missouri. “I don’t know what we would do with our time if we didn’t work. But we also we need the money so we can play in the winter.”

Playing in the past few years has included an Alaskan cruise for their 50th wedding anniversary in 2001, followed by a Caribbean cruise over one Christmas, and a 10-day cruise with family to the Panama Canal.

In between their winter excursions and summer Workamping, Bob and Jackie renovated their house in Texas, adding vinyl siding and new windows. They completed a garage and work shop to house Bob’s hobby of woodworking and furniture making. One winter, he built a floor-to-ceiling entertainment center for their comfortable retirement home.

Recently, the Belsons listened when their children suggested that “…it’s time for Dad to get off the road with a motorhome.” They traded their converted bus for a fifth-wheel, which they can store in St. Louis during the winters. Now, they travel from Texas to Missouri by car, keeping themselves active in Workamping despite some physical limitations.

Beginning in April, Bob and Jackie settle in for a busy season for Gavere Leather at the St. Louis Six Flags location. Living six miles from the park, Jackie drops Bob off every morning for their split-shift days. “I pick up the till at cash control and open the shop,” Bob says. “We share our building with the glass shop, so as managers, we cover each other for breaks. First, I straighten stock, pull additional inventory out of the back room, and make sure the engraving machine is working properly. “By that time, customers arrive,” he continues. “I enjoy interacting with folks, especially the youngsters who come in to look at bracelets or caps. The teenagers keep me young.”

The walls at the Gavere Leather Shop at Six Flags are covered with belts, purses, skullcaps, do-rags, wooden plaques, and wallets. Racks hanging from the ceiling display cowboy hats, Australian Outback hats, straw hats, coonskin caps, and leather “cool” cups for canned drinks. A window wall shows off waist bags. Shelves hold other merchandise and a glass case houses expensive items such as belt buckles and jewelry. Various sizes of dream-catchers hang throughout the compact shop.

Bob explains that within the past year, the company upgraded their engraving operation to a laser engraver. The new system enables them to produce more work, but also entails learning a complete new computer program. “We engrave names or phrases on leather key chains, leather bracelets, and leather hair barrettes,” he says. “We also engrave names on plastic key chains.” Jackie notes that their shop has an inventory book of approximately 32 pages with a variety of items. “I eyeball the stock all week, making notes as to what I need to inventory extensively,” she says. “Usually on Sunday night, I fax to the company five or 10 pages of inventory, along with our sales figures for the week and the hours put in by both of us and one full-time and one part-time employee. Gavere provides us with a fax machine and a calling card.”

While Bob works mornings in the shop, Jackie does the homemaking routine in their newly acquired fifth-wheel—making Bob’s dinner, packing her own dinner to take to the shop, doing the laundry, and cleaning. Most days, she gets a short nap. Since Jackie suffers from spinal stenosis and a herniated disc, she often has to call from the first shop inside the park and request that the young shopkeeper in the glass shop bring out her wheel chair and push her back to the Leather Shop. “Six Flags at St. Louis is not flat,” she says with humor. “Pushing me up and down the hills got to be too much for Bob. Some evenings when Bob returns to pick me up at 9:00, I need to be pushed out of the park.”

Jackie arrives on the job between 2:00 and 3:00, and Bob goes to their home on wheels and pursues his own interests, which often includes cultivating a small vegetable garden in their trailer park. One year, he grew enough produce for Jackie to can tomatoes and make pickles. Jackie says that typically, the afternoon shift handles sales and engraving only. A part-time employee works the evening shift once a week so that either Bob or Jackie has a full day off. On Saturdays, they both plan on working a 13-hour day. They usually average 42-44 hours of work for each week.

Making great friends on the job has been a plus for the Belsons. “We play cards once a week with a couple who moved in next to our RV park the first year we worked for Gavere,” Jackie says. “Come to find out, they winter at South Padre Island, Texas, about 15 miles due east of us in Los Fresnos. In the winter they come to our house. In the summer we go to theirs.”

Now in their eighth season for Gavere Leather, Bob and Jackie continue squeezing the lemons of life into lemonade. Their chosen lifestyle in retirement keeps them positive and productive—and in pocketed money for cruises.

mrs_belsen1_web.jpg While Bob works mornings in the shop, Jackie does the homemaking routine in their newly acquired fifth-wheel—making Bob’s dinner, packing her own dinner to take to the shop, doing the laundry, and cleaning. Most days, she gets a short nap. Since Jackie suffers from spinal stenosis and a herniated disc, she often has to call from the first shop inside the park and request that the young shopkeeper in the glass shop bring out her wheel chair and push her back to the Leather Shop. “Six Flags at St. Louis is not flat,” she says with humor. “Pushing me up and down the hills got to be too much for Bob. Some evenings when Bob returns to pick me up at 9:00, I need to be pushed out of the park.”

Jackie arrives on the job between 2:00 and 3:00, and Bob goes to their home on wheels and pursues his own interests, which often includes cultivating a small vegetable garden in their trailer park. One year, he grew enough produce for Jackie to can tomatoes and make pickles. Jackie says that typically, the afternoon shift handles sales and engraving only. A part-time employee works the evening shift once a week so that either Bob or Jackie has a full day off. On Saturdays, they both plan on working a 13-hour day. They usually average 42-44 hours of work for each week.

Making great friends on the job has been a plus for the Belsons. “We play cards once a week with a couple who moved in next to our RV park the first year we worked for Gavere,” Jackie says. “Come to find out, they winter at South Padre Island, Texas, about 15 miles due east of us in Los Fresnos. In the winter they come to our house. In the summer we go to theirs.”

Now in their eighth season for Gavere Leather, Bob and Jackie continue squeezing the lemons of life into lemonade. Their chosen lifestyle in retirement keeps them positive and productive—and in pocketed money for cruises.

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