Plünger Scønce: tribute to a German-Danish punk band. Onboarding in 2026.

Onboarding. Training. Call it what you will, but this is my sixth consecutive season working the summer in Glacier Park. And regardless of how familiar things have become over time, I always find something different. New. Something that puts the X in extraordinary.

I’m back at the Coram RV Park, where I stayed in 2021. A place I once called the back stage lot for the French Penal Colony, where they filmed Papillon (Steve McQueen at his sweatiest and Dustin Hoffman looking like a teenager). I felt that same way that entire season. But I digress.  

The common kitchen hasn’t changed at all. A beautiful cinder block building to prepare your meals and cook to your heart’s delight. And if you go in the back door, you find the DIY bathroom with toilet stalls cut (poorly) from plywood and tile that makes the Great Wall of China look like a perfectly straight line.

An assortment of Red Buses and their drivers still call this home. Although most of them are in RVs and travel trailers, with lawns to mow and status garden gnomes to meticulously arrange.

But I will spend the week in the ‘big house.’ Back in ’21, it was seldom used, so I borrowed the porch to do some of my early writing. Before the blog, when I was just dropping posts on Facebook. Why there? Well, it was quiet ….

And I could do my laundry at the same time. Don’t worry, they didn’t just build this add-on for washers and dryers. There is a golf cart and a snow blower under there, too!

The house has been completely cut into a dorm. There is a double bedroom and bathroom on the bottom floor, while the upper floor holds about six poor souls (only because the ceiling is too low for bunk beds). Bonus: I’m also sharing that room with a couple of my old roommates from prior seasons. My son Mitch and none other than The Joe Duffy!

The refrigerator is your standard seasonal worker’s s*** show. From this assortment, I’m guessing there might be two to three other people squirreled away in this shack somewhere. And from the bowl of milk, possibly a cat.

But the real piest de resistance, the bathroom. Yes, it is definitely something out of a Quentin Tarantino youth hostel movie. But something caught my eye.

Clearly a tribute to the German/Danish punk band Plünger Scønce. They owned the Berlin club scene in the early 80s, but their lead guitarist died before they could do an American tour (slipped on a dirty restroom floor).

And there you have it. It feels good sitting up here on this beat up deck again and doing a little writing. Like me, it is old and familiar, and has a few more years left in it.

And all I have to do is stand up, walk thru a door, and I have a whole new house of mystery for exploration and inspiration. GoatBoy is happy and at peace.

And for Patrick, it’s nice to see him again.

Goatboy Out!

PS – Quick shout-out to Duffy. Would have never found the bathroom without him.