Beautiful Wife

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The First Campout

             It was a beautiful early spring Friday afternoon, and I could hardly sit still in Mrs. McGlaughlins 5th grade class.  "This state, which is shaped like an iron skillet, is Oklahoma, which is......,” she droned on.  I was too busy concentrating on our first campout 'plans' to worry about iron skillets in Oklahoma.  Mine and Jess's first campout had originally started out with plans of taking a week out of school, backpacking deep into the wooded country, and living off of the land.  (Venison, wild game, and grubs'n stuff.)  The only glitch was our parents.  After hours of deliberation, they agreed to let us hike up on the hill, have a campfire, and then pick us up after dark.  My dad was to retrieve our bodies at exactly 9:00 p.m., on the west slope of the east range, on the two-track road that led between Two-Titty buttes (about 1/2 mile above town.)   

            Since it got dark at around 7:45 p.m., that would give us about an hour to make a campfire, cook our hotdogs, no, wait, rabbit-on-a-stick......, "R-I-C-H-A-R-D?”  I could feel Mrs. McGlaughlin’s eyes on me (which I later realized was actually the chalkboard eraser at 20 feet--what an arm.)  "From today’s lessons, what was the name of the northwesterly trail between 1840 and 1860 that started in Missouri?  It was named after one of our magnificent States."  I knew I was in deep trouble.  I probably was checking my backpack and canteens during that lesson.  Since I had never left my home state, and it was the only trail I could remember under pressure, I blurted out "Trail of Oregon?"  She scowled and made a big mark in her book that sounded like tearing paper.

             Jess was having similar difficulties in Mr. Vanslike’s class.  Only difference was, he got to go to the principal’s office.  There was plenty of time in the principal’s office for strategic planning.  Some of our best-planned adventures came from there.  In fact, our airplane construction was about to leave the blueprint stage that summer, when Jess realized that the wings couldn’t have any holes drilled in them.   This was discovered by Jess from the fact that the principal’s paddle carried little wind resistance when striking Jess's …..well anyway, you get the picture.

             Saturday morning arrived and we excitedly began getting our gear together.  Since we didn't have backpacks, we decided to roll all of our gear into our authentic pre-'42- military mummy bags, which still carried the smell of musty socks and diesel fuel.  The stains left in the sleeping bags were probably bloodstains from untold battle stories.  With half of our gear stuffed into Jess's sleeping bag, we couldn't roll it up, much less fold it in half.  So we started in with the difficult task of sorting.  The parachute was for emergencies; as were the ten-pound two-way radios and the four 90-degree military flashlights. We probably didn't need six canteens, since we weren't staying overnight, and the extra pillows would have to go as well.  What was left didn't much resemble survival gear.  And, we were really disappointed that we would not be able to trap any bears on this trip.  We did pack pocket-knives (all of them), and string for making snares in hopes of catching a rabbit for the rotisserie.  Each of us carried a canteen of water, and in our sleeping bags were 15 books of matches, a compass (never know when we might have to track wild game), marshmallows, Hershey bars, graham crackers, a flashlight (the only one that worked), kindling and some extra clothing (just in case our parents changed their minds, or they got lost and we had to take a week out of school to find them.) 

            Our destination was the big, and only, juniper tree on the west face of left Titty-Butte (as was its resemblance.)  It could easily be seen from our parents’ and my grandmother’s house.  Jess and I left my house at about 3:00 p.m.  The first two blocks of our campout were starting to wear on us, so we stopped off at my grandmother’s house for refreshments.  Mmmmm!  A big dish of fresh banana pudding and a cold glass of milk; what a treat!   Next stop—Southside Market to pickup soda pops and some more candy bars; Jess also bought a large green vegetable looking thing that resembled a big pickle, and we put it in his over-stuffed pack for later.  Since we were using nylon rope webbing to hold our sleeping bags (backpacks) together, and backpack loop-tying was not covered in the Boy Scout manual, it was difficult to remember how to reshape the knots with loops to go over our shoulders.

              Two more blocks and we were standing at the base of the mountain - staring wide-eyed at the vertical slope in front of us.  Okay, time for a snack.  All of the snacks were in Jess’s pack, so we unrolled his pack, ate his pickle (err, cucumber), a couple of candy bars, an RC Cola, and then rolled up the pack - which didn't roll up near as well as it did at the store.  The we claimed our assault on the hill, three steps forward, two back.  After we slid back down the hill for the third time, we decided to find an alternate route.  The alternate route didn't look near as steep, but it had lots of prickly Buck-Brush on it.  So we unrolled Jess’s gear for another snack to make sure we had enough energy to fight off the prickly offenders.  After sharing a cola and candy bar, (our rations were already starting to look pretty thin) Jess rolled up his pack.  But this time there were a lot of items sticking out in all directions out of his pack.  Some of the knots were too tight to undo, and with time wearing on as it was, Jess had me tie the pack onto his back just the way it was.  Boy Scout 101, let’s see, a half knot here, a double knot there, suck in the gut, cinch it up real tight, and off we went.  About halfway up the hill Jess’s pack had mysteriously come undone and was in close resemblance to a giant yoyo.  Although the two loops stayed on his shoulders, the pack had slowly unraveled to about 15 feet behind him; with camping items attached.  Jess would pull it up close, throw more loops over his shoulders and venture another ten or fifteen steps, only again to have the pack slowly unravel.  When we crested the hill it took both of us to drag his gear to safety.  The real battle was the stubborn Buck-Brush; which had grown arms and each bush seemed to want something out of Jess’s pack. 

            With gear in tow, we arrived at the Juniper tree.  The ground was not as level as we had remembered so I worked on the ground leveling project while Jess piled rocks for a fire-pit.  Then we both hauled lots of firewood (just in case we had to spend the whole night.)  The Juniper tree did not offer much wood, so we hauled big pieces of Buck-Brush (looking closely for any missing camp gear it may have snagged).  It was about 7:00 p.m. now and the camp was starting to take shape.  In fact, we felt much like a breed of Lewis and Clark or Crocket and Boone.  Things were just alright.

             We started a fire with what was left of our kindling.  (What would Buck-Brush use kindling for?)  Then we headed out to set some traps to catch dinner.  We couldn't find any logs large enough to make dead-fall figure-four traps, so we set the ol' hanging-noose-over-the-trail traps; then we headed back to camp.  When we got there, our fire had gone out.  We had already used all of our matches, so we took turns blowing on the glowing embers until we were back in business with a nice blazing flame.  Assuming, then, that we could be gone longer (checking traps) if we build a bigger fire, we made it a real cooker this time; it was our first experience at getting singed eyebrows at six feet away. 

            When we returned from our empty traps it was almost dark, but amazingly our fire was doing just fine.  We put our noose-traps away and got out our marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate to make some Smores.  Smores must be a mountain-man name for dessert, since we couldn't find it in the dictionary; and that suited us just fine.  With the fire blazing, it was hard to cook the marshmallows on our short Buck-Brush sticks, and because it was almost 8:10 p.m., we didn't have time to wait for coals.  We finished with dinner by 8:20 p.m. and threw some more brush on the fire.  Now this was the life; we would definitely be camping out a lot more often. 

             "CRASH, THUD, CRUNCH,” were the sounds coming from the darkness directly above us.  Not more that 50 feet away, I could vaguely make out a kid-hungry monster, no it was two kid-hungry monsters making their way toward us.  I could hear them talking to each other in grunts and groans, and one of them was carrying a large shiny object.  Probably a machete for chopping kids into small pieces.  (I had read this in a "Mad" magazine over Christmas break.)  I spied Jess sitting up in his sleeping bag, staring wide-eyed.  I wondered if kid-hungry monsters used rotisseries.  I couldn't take it any longer.  I crawled to the bottom of my bag and stuck my handy-dandy Boy Scout pocketknife out the top.

             "What are you boys up to?,” I heard a rough voice say.  When I finally peered from my sanctuary, I saw two U.S. Forest Service men standing before us with shovels.  They immediately stepped forward and put out our fire, mumbling something about how only you can prevent ___ forest fires.  These guys weren't “Smokey the Bear”, but they sure could put out a flame.  Then as quickly as they arrived, they were gone.  I could still see Jess's wide-eyed expression, and I was sure he could see mine.  The fire-pit was as cold as a witch’s.....!  Well, let’s just say there wasn't any hope of another fire; and besides, “Smokey the Bear” might show up next. 

             Our only flashlight wasn't working very well, but we did manage to find our boots.  We decided that sitting there in the dark wasn't any fun, so we started throwing everything in the bottom of our sleeping bags.  The rope webbing must have gotten thrown into one of the bags too, because it was nowhere to be found.  There was just enough flashlight battery life left for us to see that the time was 8:30 p.m.  Amazing how fast two Forest Service guys can ruin an evening.

             So, with our gear in tow, off we dragged.  

             The lights from town cast eerie shadows around us.  Buck-Brush revenge?  We weren't sure.  The light was dim, but it was all we had, and in 1968 there were probably only a handful of street lights in the whole town.  Of course, none of the lights were from that particular jeep; a rescue vehicle of sorts.  Down one canyon and up the next we trudged.  We dug out Jess's compass, which had illuminating green dots on it, and checked it for a heading.  Never know when we might have to back-track.  The compass heading looked good, so off we marched. 

             "Hey Jess, do’ya think we've crossed the two-track yet?" 

             "Nope, but could'ya pick it up a little, I think I hear it coming."  

             Well, we did finally find the two-track road, and my dad's jeep lights were a true blessing.  If I had to come up with a moral for this story, I really don't know what it would be.  Some five years later we discovered that the local police station had been swamped with phone calls that night.  All the reports were of a large surging fire on the hillside.  They had reports that ranged from UFO's to Hippies on the hill.  And given the era of the late '60s, and the great Hippie movement Northward from California, perhaps we were just that of a mistaken identity. 

-----Rick Threet