I was talking with my son last night and it seemed that my two grands, on my son's side, were going to spend the night "Camping" with their neighbor buddies. That is they were going to spend the night in a tent in the back yard.
Now these kids are six and nine respectively!
It brought back a memory or two.
Seems when you get older, there is no end to the stimulus that brings back those old adventures.
While in high school, my neighborhood buddies and I decided to do some deer hunting in northern New Jersey. I had the old '58 ish pontiac station wagon at the time and we all piled into her Friday afternoon.
This was a time when urban expansion was not as noticeable as today. There was rural and we were in it. Farmers eeked out a living of sorts between the River and the mountains or hills to the east. There were no golden arches to soothe our craving for grease and sugar. And all liquid nourishment had to be "Carried In" so to speak. This was roughing it to the extreme for guys who were basically spoiled to begin with.
We were going to hunt a private farm that belonged to a friend of my father, somewhere along the Delaware River north of the Water Gap. In so doing we had to camp out overnight. No tent of course and none of all the modern day camping equipment so popular and necessary today. Some of had read the adventures of Teddy Roosevelt, so we were prepared.
I will also remind you of the fact that we were all accomplished archers and this would be a bow hunt. It still amazes me that the local authorities had not arrested us all for roaming the neighborhood with our bows and arrows almost every day in the fall. I think one of the parents might have advised the police of our basic ineffectualness. But you know that God protects drunks and little kids. We fell into the latter category.
This was our quarry!
Course we never saw one!
I remember that we pulled off a back road (two lane), in the dark, and parked up against the side of a very steep hill. A hill we intended to hunt in the morning. There were four or five of us and our "Tent" was simply a big piece of canvas that we tied to the top of the car and then to stakes driven into the side of the hill. A good lean too, we thought. A small fire to heat water and cook whatever slim staples we had and we were good to go. It was total darkness by the time we got set up and it looked pretty good to us.
Until---------the temperature dropped and it started to rain/sleet!
We didn't have a clue. The rain ran off the tarp, onto the hill, down the hill, and across all our camp. To add to all that we couldn't keep a fire going.
Dinner consisted of a few bag of potato chips.
It's amazing how grumpy a group of good friends can become when under such stress.
Now we were in our mid teens and without adult supervision.
We did make it through the night, but with everyone sleeping in the car!
I have it on good authority that the Grands were asleep by 8:30 pm and no strange noises kept them awake all night. They didn't sneak onto the porch and then into the house in the middle of the night because of those night critters we all know are out there. They made it through the night!
Way to go kids!
They did a great deal better than I those many years ago!
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