There were few things I did without as a child. I got the usual toys kids wanted-a new purple stingray with a banana seat, an Easy Bake oven, a Creepy Crawler bug machine that cooked up those spongy creatures with stretchable limbs, and that weirdly pleasant plastic odor. But what I really wanted more than anything, at least during one phase in my pre-teen years, were two things I never got-a wood-grain station wagon like all my neighbor's drove, and a camping vacation.
I envied those families who layered suitcases on the roof rack like a tiered cake, piling blankets and pillows in the back, along with the kids and dog, turning the end of the wagon into the ultimate moving fort. Coolers filled with bologna sandwiches and Purple Passion, they'd back out of their drive, on a 70's road trip into the wilderness, while I was parked at the end of our drive sitting on my banana seat, waving goodbye.
My father could rough it up for his annual Alaskan fishing trip, but I don't think my mother ever slid her tiny body into a sleeping bag.
The closest I ever got to camping was when we dragged our sheets and blankets into the backyard one night and rigged it up between a small tree in our garden and a weathered picnic table using clothes pins to seam the bedding together. Since we weren't a camping family we didn't have sleeping bags, so we yanked whatever else was remaining on our beds, including the frilly canopies that we slept under, and fashioned a patchwork tent, with enough gaps in the ceiling to just about make out the Big Dipper.
We carried out bowls of Bugles and Funyons, soda, and long strands of red liquorice that we had braided into necklaces and bracelets before eating, found an old flash light in the junk drawer, and waited for night to fall, our mercurial voices drowning out the building winds, as we wondered what it'd be like to marry Keith Partridge and ride around on a psychedelic flower-power bus, and telling spooky stories about a crazy serial killer who slithered through backyards looking to slice up preteen backyard campers.
We were packed in our makeshift tent, the air thick with the sweet and salty smells of junk food, and stale hot breath from prepubescent teens, and though only steps from the house, we felt as though we were nestled deep in the forest, miles from civilization.
One by one, we drifted off, five of us stuffed into that steamy tent, where silence soon filled the lengthening gaps between whispers, and we drifted off to sleep.
We didn't make it much past midnight; the distant storm had bulldozed its way in, with claps of thunder so loud and forceful, they seemingly lifted us from our sleeping bags. And cracks of lightening so vivid, our tent exploded with intense snaps of light. Then the rain came, fast and heavy; it soaked the fabric ceiling down to within inches of our noses, all while our parents were snoring in their dry beds.
There was no heli-parents in those days-it was classic survival of the fittest. Besides, we always played outside in storms, rain or snow-lightening, wind or hail. We'd happily wash our hair under the drain spouts with lightening firing off rounds within inches of our house, threatening to reduce us to small piles of ash.
"When we were your age, we walked up and down the Avenue in all kinds of weather," our mother would say, gently closing the screen door on us.
During one summer storm, when drains overflowed, and turned a neighboring street into a waist high river, we swam like trout through the muddy water, dodging twigs and unidentifiable objects. Our mother barely raising an eyebrow as we trudged into the house, our clothes browned from the dirty water.
"A bit of dirt won't kill you."
(Well, possibly swimming in water contaminated from run-off and sewage might have.)
We stampeded into the house, our clothes stuck to our skin, most likely the only wash of the week, besides the chlorinated pool water-which we counted as a summertime bath. And that was the last time I had camped until my kids begged me to go during one summer vacation with another mom and her son. It would be a mother son/daughter outdoor adventure they pleaded.
"Um, I'm not really the camping type," I said.
But like many of the unpleasant memories that perforate my five decades of life, this early memory was locked away in an air tight cerebral vault with a combination I'd never remember until it was pried open by a similar one. Somehow I had forgotten about that rainy summer evening, and ordered a tent, sleeping bags with an extra fleece lining for those chilly nights (how rustic and so, well, campy), and a few mats to cushion the soft green meadow where we'd rest our bodies. I threw in a cute propane stove where we'd perk lip burning coffee like a couple of cowgirls, and a few wine glasses, because as I later found out, drinking and camping go together like cheese and crackers.
I had always wondered why camping families look exhausted when they rolled in their driveway, eye bags down to their toes, hair in a nest, stumbling into their house, the bags of camping gear left on the roof until it positively had to come off.
And I soon found out-camping is damn hard work. It's no wonder because you're basically moving the entire contents of your house into your car, and transporting it to a 12x12 dirt patch under a canopy of sap dripping pines. And since the kids simply dissolve into the forest, there's no one to help set up camp. There's no one to haul your bags in after a long drive or flight, no comfy bed to flop on, no minibar to raid, and no private bathroom-it's a dirty, dusty, privy going, rock underneath your sleeping bag kind of pioneer experience that the kids absolutely loved.
By the time we figured out how to pitch our tent, we were on our second bottle of wine. By the time we slipped into our sleeping bags, we could hear the familiar rumblings of a distant storm gathering strength, flexing its muscles. We aimed our flash lights on the ceiling and watched as drops of rain seeped through, and woke up the next morning with a stream running through our tent.
There's nothing quite like waking up in a wet sleeping bag on a oppressively humid morning, surrounded by your kids, and knowing you're making another string of childhood memories for another generation.
