Memories...Like a Campground in My Mind

While camping this year I have been reflecting on some of my past trips as a child. Now before you say,"But Jeff, it's hard to picture you as a child. You are so mature, dignified, and poised." Let me assure you I was once a youngin'.

It's funny what triggers certain memories from childhood. This year I have so many triggers aiming at me I feel like I'm the lead in a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western.

Trigger number one, as always, is camping itself. Camping and traveling in a camper were my family's standard vacation. It was a given. We had a third-hand boat we bought from my uncle and that added a bit to some of the trips. Any of our family within driving distance would come and camp together. Cousins, uncles, aunts, grandparents, as far as the eye could see. Of course I couldn't see very well, I desperately needed glasses but didn't realize it til junior high.

Second trigger "kapwing!" (That's my attempt at a richochet sound effect) is all of these warning signs. Warning signs are fairly common at campsites. In Yosemite,"Do not feed the wildlife." In Yellowstone, "Be bear aware." In Niagara Falls, "Stairs are extremely slippery." In southern California, "Angelina Jolie may try to adopt your kid!" In northern california,"Beware of the guy from the deep south who thinks it's perfectly acceptable to pee on his camper as your daughter and her friend walk by." Wait, there wasn't a sign for that, but there should have been. Signs are everywhere!

We aren't too concerned about most of the signs, generally, until we came to our usual spot here in Oregon. As we drove in we saw a "Beware of snakes" sign on the entrance. Well that's new! No big deal though. Can you say it with me? "They are more scared of us than we are of them."

Then we drove fifty feet into the campground...again, "Beware Of Snakes!" Hmm, that's unusual. As we drove past the bath house, "We're not playin'! Beware of Snakes!" As we rounded the corner to pull into our site, "Didja ever see Snakes on a Plane? It's kinda like that!" OK, I may have made up one or two of those signs but you get the idea. And there really were a large number of snake signs.

I've been a camper for years. Seen many snakes. Even been followed by a snake when I carried a lantern around. My sister had a huge Burmese rock python named Reggie that I held more times than I can remember. We even saw one on this trip. No problem, snakes do not bother me...now.

My third trigger for the camping memory was a giggle laden discussion about how girls need a "facility" where boys just need a tree. True, somewhere in the Sierras is a patch of snow with my son's name. Proud dad over here.

I told you all of that so could tell you this story. A long time ago, on one of our family trips, everybody was there. We were camping at a lake, with our boat, and it was "rustic". For the uninitiated that means, not a lot of bathrooms. You could hike to them from your campsite, provided you are sure you can find your way back. That also means that when you take the family to an island in the middle of the lake there is absolutely no chance of finding a bathroom there. That is the place that my uncle decided we should spend the day. An exceptionally hot day.

Aside from the lack of bathrooms let me describe it for you. Imagine an oversized dump truck spilling a humongous load of jagged rocks in the middle of the lake. So many rocks that the pile breaks the surface of the lake and reaches toward the sky. No vegetation, just sharp rocks and me, wearing flip-flops. This is the point in the story where I need to admit that I am flip-flop impaired. I have never mastered the skill of walking in them and usually end up with some sort of injury. For some reason that little deal between your toes acts like a pivot and the part my heel is supposed to touch almost never does. It is not an exaggeration to say that I hate flip-flops.

So now we have the slagheap, my whole family, no bathrooms, and the sun beating down on us like it had a personal vendetta against us. All of which I can deal with, begrudgingly. And then we add my cousin Tom to the mix.

Tom is an awesome guy who was way more adventurous than I'll ever be. He also knew more about the outdoors than I did at that point in my life. He felt the need to impart some of this knowledge onto me. What did he choose to teach me on this day on that island?

"Hey Jeff. This is the perfect place to find snakes!"

Great! So now I have that going for me.

Then he adds, "Yeah, there are snakes under all these rocks."

I am now thinking, good thing I'm sure-footed in these flip-flops! Wouldn't want to disturb the jagged rocks here on Snake Island.

And then it happened. It's the same mechanism in the body that makes you laugh when you are at church and need to scratch your nose when you're hands are covered in nasty smelling muck. Apparently when you are on Snake Island with jagged rocks, no bathroom, and no hope of escape...you need to pee.

"Uncle Dick?" (driver of the boat and dad of Tom) "I need to go to the bathroom."
"Well, go over the top of the hill."
"That's OK. I'll wait."
"We'll be here a while. Just go over the hill to the other side of the island."

I resigned myself to my fate and began the tortuous climb to the other side of the island. It was ten minutes of step, trip, wobble, jab a toe on a rock, expect instant death, step, trip...you get the idea. As I got to the top of the mountain (mountain = I could throw a rock across the whole pile of rocks) I decided if I was going to fall off my shoes, split my head open on a rock, and be poisoned by a snake, I at least wanted someone to find the body.

I dropped trou' and started to go. I was facing away from the group, of course, but as I went about my "business" my uncle happened to look up. The way he described it, after he stopped laughing, was something like Superman standing on top of the building during the opening credits of the TV show. Elbows bent, hands on hips, cape blowing in the breeze. My uncle felt that I was making a statement about the world in general and when to this day,he tells the story, well let's just say he needs to pee. In reality I was just hoping to get back in the boat as soon as possible , without being bitten by a black Mamba, King Cobra, or any other imaginary North American Snakes.

So there you have it. A memory remembered while I build memories with my own kids. By the way, after I started writing this entry, we saw four rattlesnakes at our camp. Good times!!