Camping surely is not an activity for sissies

Published 8:45 am Wednesday, July 1, 2009

“I needed to get away,” said my neighbor Crandall.

“Get away from what?” I asked.

“I’ll tell you. I was playing poker with Two Much Thompson. Whenever he needed to leave the table to go to the bathroom, or to make a cell phone call, or to make a cell phone call from the bathroom, he would put his glass eye on his cards. Then he would say, ‘I’m keeping an eye on you.’ A man can only take so much of that kind of thing before he needs a vacation. Besides, I’d grown weary of mowing the lawn. I fought the lawn, and the lawn won.”

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“Where did you go?” I asked.

“Well, I thought about taking a staycation. I could stay home. I could drive around and then get something to eat or I could get something to eat and then drive around. I thought about driving down to Missouri and have someone show me something. If it weren’t for Iowa, I could get to Missouri a lot faster. I was stuck with going camping with Still Bill. ‘Let’s go camping. It will be great gobs of fun,’ Still Bill said, grinning like a sack full of possum heads. Still Bill has a tattoo that reads, ‘Do not disturb.’ We dressed up in outdoor clothing so that we would look like we knew what we were doing. Still Bill had on his outdoor slippers. We had rainsuits made of fabrics that ‘breathe’ and would enable us to stay dry in frog-strangling downpours. Rainsuits that sneeze, cough, or belch are worthless. Deerflies orbited my head as we camped near an Amish farm.”

“How could you tell? Was there a lack of electric wires?” I asked.

“No, they had a horse up on blocks. My tent was too small. I was 10 pounds of potatoes in a 5-pound sack. Cowboy hats are measured by the volume of water they hold. My tent was a 10-gallon tent. It wasn’t as good at being put up as I am at putting up tents. The stars were as close and bright as I had ever seen them. Especially right after I’d hit my head on that tree limb. I hit it so hard that even my name was swollen. I practiced looking unappetizing in case I encountered a bear. Food is important to an old woodsman like me. In emergencies, I can survive in the wilderness by shooting small game with a slingshot made from the elastic waistband of my underwear. Still Bill eats roadkill. He says thousands of vultures can’t be wrong. I’ve learned that old socks can be made into beef jerky by smoking them over a campfire. My favorite is gold soup. It’s slicker than owl manure.”

“How do you make gold soup?” I asked.

“Use 14 carrots. It goes through me like grass through a goose. After a few bowls of the stuff, nature called — it has me on speed dial. In my haste, I hadn’t noticed that a badger already occupied the space I’d chosen to answer the call. Badgers? We don’t need no stinking badgers. Just when things are going well, life will cloud up and rain on you. The badger growled at me. I would have growled back except it’s hard to growl when your pants are at your ankles. The badger had me backed up against a tree and was eating my leather belt. Still Bill heard the commotion and acted quickly. He moved faster than I thought he could. It was as close to running as Still Bill has ever been.”

“He ran to get his gun?” I asked.

“No, to get his camera. He said that nobody would believe him unless he had photographic evidence. The only normal people are those you don’t know very well. I finally got to sleep. I’m never awakened by the call of a loon. I have an unlisted number. I dreamed of a rapping at my door. I hate that kind of music. In reality, it was Still Bill waking me and instructing me to look up and tell him what I saw. I told him that I could see stars beyond number. ‘And what does that tell you?’ Still Bill asked. I replied that it was a demonstration of the vastness of space and the clear sky indicated that the next day would be fair.”

“Nice response,” I said. “What did Still Bill say?”

“He said, ‘No, you idiot. It means that someone stole your tent.’ There’s a reason the Rolling Stones don’t sing about camping. Take this simple test to see if you should go camping. Shine a flashlight into one ear. If the beam shines out the other ear, go camping.”

Hartland resident Al Batt’s columns appear every Wednesday and Sunday.