The ambulance came to a stop at the Emergency Entrance of County Metro. By the time the driver rounded the corner at the rear of the vehicle, the EMT in back already had the gurney half-way out, and the wheels were locking into position. As they entered the corridor, an Emergency Room nurse ran ahead of them, yelling “Out of the way, out of the way! Room 4! Room 4!”

The man on the gurney, in his mid-forties, was in a bad way from the traffic accident he was in. X-rays quickly revealed several broken ribs, a sprained ankle, and a fractured skull. His shirt and pants were cut from his body. The attending physicians discovered that their patient wore nothing under his outerwear, making their job a bit easier. The man’s chest was wrapped, his ankle set, and he was placed in a medically-induced coma.

Within 12 hours, the man was moved to an Intensive Care Unit for head trauma victims. A nurse was attaching electrodes to his upper body and head when she felt another presence enter the area.

“Hello, Father!” the nurse said, continuing an old joke that she had long established with all of the clergy that were a too common sight in the ICU. As a life-long Roman Catholic, every minister was a ‘Father’ to this nurse.

The minister laughed, too, considering that she was young, never-married, female, and Lutheran. “I bet that joke never gets old, does it?” was all she could muster, upon looking at the man on the wheeled bed.

“No it doesn’t,” the nurse replied. “I’ll be done here in a minute. A police officer dropped off that bag over there,” pointing to a small pile of personal effects that belonged to the man, things that the police picked up from the crash scene. The pastor looked thru the bag, most of the items were in smaller zip-lock bags, but one item stood out, a white 3-ringed binder, filled with printed pages and lined notebook paper with hand written notes. She looked through it and quickly realized that this must be the man’s writings.

“Hello Mister” the minister looked at the medical chart, “Jacobsen! My name is Linda Wasserman. I’m a Lutheran pastor on hospital duty this afternoon. I hope you don’t mind if I read some of these stories to you from your own notebook.” She looked through and started reading the first one that looked fairly long, and, hopefully, complete.

Paul ‘Long’ Lance Thompson, 24, was a man on a mission. He needed a job, and he needed one fast. Not only had his paid internship disappeared, but so had his grad school professor. Last Monday everything was great; the professor picked him up, took him to an interview, brought him back to his apartment, and left. Paul just didn’t realize that not only had he left town, he seemed to have left the country, and the planet. Nobody at the university had seen or heard from the good professor for the last seven days. And they wanted to find him, too. It seemed some of his research wasn’t exactly original work, peer-reviewed, or even valid, to say the least.

But that wasn’t Paul’s problem. What he needed was a job, something that paid money. Since he thought he was getting a paid internship, he didn’t bother with the usual summer jobs that most grad school students took on: waiters or bar-backs at the local restaurants, ticket takers at the local amusement park, even lifeguard at one of the local pools. As a student-athlete, his scholarship only paid for tuition, fees, books, and small incidentals. Not rent, not food, not other living expenses.

He was searching for work online, figuring he could use search engines to better focus on jobs that would work for him. One job that came up was something that he wasn’t expecting. It wasn’t in his area of study, but at this point, he wasn’t in his area of study, either.

The online advert was simple and straight-forward: Bricklaying for pool patio/walkway, but other jobs as needed: lawn mowing, hedge & tree pruning, assist w/putting up/taking down tents/canvas coverings, R/V & auto-trailer traffic director, deliver water/ice/charcoal/wood/food to campsites. Pay and benefits: $100/day; but need to be available 24/7; applicant is expected to live on premises in choice of 6-person tent or a rebuilt camper; free breakfast & lunch served at work site; work gloves provided for brickwork & grounds keeping, orange vest for directing heavy traffic; additional jobs as needed, at beck and call of site residents and visiting members; basically a Man Friday. Talk to Martha! 1-866-555-6833

Paul looked again at the data for the advert. It had been on the web for almost two weeks now. Spending the whole summer at a camp ground was not exactly what he was looking for, or even his idea of fun, but it would get him outside, use of a pool, and he could take the time to figure out where he was going to go from where he was currently. He picked up the phone and tapped the number.

The phone rang twice, and a pleasant female voice answered, “Hello, Magnolia and Moss! This is Martha!” She made it sound like a professional office of lawyers or doctors, not a family camp site.

“Hi, I’m Paul. I’m calling about the Man Friday ad. Is it still available?”

“Yes!” she said excitedly. “Yes it is! Have you experience in bricklaying?”

‘Oh, finally; something positive!’ he thought. “Yes ma’am! I laid brick patios as a summer job a few years ago, when I started college.”

“You’ll be required to help with grounds keeping almost a hundred acres.”

“I’m good with that!”

“We have a requirement for living on the premises. Will that work for you?”

“Yes ma’am! I live in an apartment with several others. People come and go! I won’t be missed.”

“You’ll be assisting an older gentleman named Howard. He’s our handyman. He needs help with all the heavy lifting. Are you willing to do that, as well?”

Again, it was “Yes ma’am!” Paul really didn’t have much of a choice.

“Customer service is very important to our business.”

“Yes ma’am, I can work well with people; courtesy and respect for others.”

“We pretty much provide you all you will need. Still, it’s not for everyone!”

“I was just about to ask about that, ma’am. Why hasn’t this job been scooped up already?”

“You’ve never heard of Magnolia and Moss, have you?” Martha asked

This time Paul answered in the negative. “No ma’am, but I have little choice in the matter. I need income, and I can do the work you have.”

“Okay”, said Martha questioningly, “do you have transportation?”

“Yes ma’am!”

“Here is the address,” and she gave Paul the address and some simple directions.

Paul found his drive was only 45-50 minutes, which was a good thing, as his old junker of a car just didn’t have many miles left in it. He followed Martha’s directions to the letter, but still found that he passed the entrance to the campground, and had to turn around. This put him on the correct side of the road to turn right in. He pulled up to an intercom, and pushed the button to speak. He looked past it, and read the sign on the gate. The sign read Magnolia and Moss, a Family Naturist Campsite.

The pastor read that last line over again. ‘The sign read Magnolia and Moss, a Family Naturist Campsite.’ She couldn’t believe her eyes. ‘That took quite a twist’, she thought.

* * *

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