Rittenours honored for campground work
Princeton senior citizen Fred Rittenour’s motivation for having he and his wife Darlene become park hosts at Riverside Park this summer was to make life less boring for her.
He certainly managed to do that and along the way the couple earned recognition by the city for their work as exemplary hosts. The city council did that this past July 28, giving the couple, who are in their 70s, a $50 certificate to Steven’s Restaurant as a token of the city’s appreciation.
Darlene is completely retired. Her last job workplace was the Crystal Cabinet Works plant in Princeton where she worked for 25 years until 2002. Farther back, she had worked for 10 years for Fingerhut’s mail-order business that operated in Princeton and also one time kept the books at the Bock feed mill and creamery.
Fred, meanwhile, is only semi-retired, still working part-time delivering landscaping supplies for local business SRW. His earliest significant job in life was working for the Westman Silo business that was in Princeton one time. He then did carpentry for 20 years, drove truck over the road for 10 and then was a school custodian in Elk River for 12 years.
The couple has lived in Princeton since 1969 and have been spending winters in Arizona since 2004. When they have come up to Princeton for the warmer months, they had usually been staying at a son’s house eight miles out of Princeton. But while Fred was in town working for SRW, Darlene was stuck out at the son’s house without a car to go anywhere and as a result became “bored,” in Fred’s words.
Fred therefore decided to ask the city staff if they would like the couple to be hosts starting this past spring at Riverside Park which has a campground. The deal was agreed upon in which the couple could park their RV and utility trailer there from June 1 through September and possibly into October for free.
The Rittenours’ job, in return, was to watch for inappropriate behavior at the park and call into police or in some cases ask people to leave.
The park, which has campsites with a relatively low camping fee, a small playground, and a canoe launch and river feature, attracts families and individuals. It is often the individuals who have done things to prompt the police calls.
Fred recalled last week how Princeton public works director Bob Gerold cautioned them that being hosts at Riverside would not be a “piece of cake.” Darlene added that the park had endured a “couple bad years” as far as inappropriate behavior there. In fact, in the not too distant past the city closed the park for the latter part of the season because things had gotten out of hand.
The Rittenours’
experience so far
The Rittenours called the local police a few times for incidents at Riverside this year and they included:
• In June, a male about age 20 brought a six-pack of beer to the picnic shelter to drink, and was “bouncing his head around,” according to Fred, who said it was all in front of about a half dozen teens age 11-14. Police came down, identified everyone and told them to leave.
• Not more than two weeks later the same male returned, still carrying beer with him and when police were called, they again told him to leave.
• One July evening the Rittenours watched a group of four or five young persons at the park who appeared to be smoking. After the group left, Fred and Darlene found a smashed liquor bottle. Fred called the police to have them look it over for possible evidence.
• During the afternoon on about July 20 while a mother and dad and their children were playing in the park, a young man in a car sped down the entrance into the park. Some people walk back and forth in front of that entrance and don’t bother to look if anyone is coming, Darlene said, adding, “We’re so scared someone will get run over.”
• There was also some “making out” (kissing) between a boy and girl) at the park one evening that was going on too long in Darlene’s estimation so she told them to leave.
• The most serious incident was the indecent exposure one that occurred during the early evening of Aug. 8. Some individuals inside the park called the police about that while the Rittenours were up in the parking lot above the park at the time with their RV unaware at first of the activity. Police came to the park and arrested a 41-year-old man who was naked from the waist down and who was reported to have acted indecently in front of juveniles.
It was “disgusting,” said Fred, who wished he had been down there at the time to make the call to police because then he would have felt like he was performing his park host duties.
“We’re thankful he was caught,” Darlene said.
The Rittenours, during their time as Riverside Park hosts, have gone beyond what they have been asked by picking up branches knocked down there during the various storms this spring and summer. As Fred explained, it makes it easier for public works to mow the grounds.
But the branch cleanup was interrupted by river water the morning of Aug. 8. The couple took their RV and trailer out of the park that morning as water flooded in from the rising river that runs alongside the park.
The Rittenours have been watching the flooding in Riverside daily, hoping the park can be usable again to park their RV and trailer. Then they will watch the calendar as the days turn cooler and soon leave for their winter perch 16 miles out of Quartzite, AZ. Then they can ponder from afar their first experience as hosts at Riverside Park in Princeton.
