“
Oh Boy !!! Another Family Camping
Trip “
06/28/12
To my very, dearest, dearest friends, and as ever,
loyal readers, at fifty-eight, I think that I have managed to learn many
things, from the trivial, to the dramatic; these ‘lessons’ in Life were usually
the result of folly, misinformation, pure bull-headedness, good intentions gone
horribly wrong, or, just—by default—from having being plain stupid.
It is, perhaps, part of the survival mechanism that
these lessons remain indelibly impressed into memory, in the fond hopes that
they will never be repeated…though, often they are.
Some of these, little nostrums should be ‘one trial
learning’, such as, if one persists in standing out in the rain, that sooner or
later, one will get wet. Drenched. Soaked.
Until one’s clothes are sodden to the skin, and walking in one’s shoes (
what’s left of them, anyway ), become like stepping in two, small swimming
pools.
Other lessons must be—perforce—repeated, and
repeated, until the basic narrative of the lesson is at last understood.
Regrettably, there are still many individuals who
seem to require trial after trial…as if somehow, on tenth, something—maybe—will
be different. And to be honest, my
dearest friends, I must add my name to the latter, occasionally. For instance, if I am able to purchase but
one Lottery ticket, surely those numbers look the best, and will win. Sigh.
Still, there are those few Life lessons that need no
repetition, whose answers are as crystal clear as tinkling bells.
And I must add to these the concept of the ‘Family
Vacation’, which I liken to a really, bad, bad marriage, as one person will be
happy; one person will go along, but suffer terminal boredom; and the last will
find nearly every part of it distasteful.
I—of course—fell into the last category, as one might know.
I know that I’m not happy, and, for me, boredom was
a state, reached, when no other amusements could be found. After that, I hated every moment of it, until
we arrived home again.
From about September 25, 1965, until about March,
1967, my dad, mom, and I packed up hearth, hat, and dog, and were deployed to
his new duty assignment in Verdun, France.
This could not be more representative of the way
Chaos works, for, eleven years before, I had been born there, and, to this day,
still have—somewhere—a faded copy of my French Birth Certificate. I fully became Americanized when I was
thirteen, and back in the States.
We lived in a kind of ‘French-ancient’ town of
Etain, and daily, my dad would make the drive to and from Verdun. We had what I
thought was a fairly nice duplex, among a hundred others, and I recall that if
I lay on my bed a certain way, I could just see a micron of sky where it
shown-through the roof, near where the walls met the ceiling, though, it never
leaked.
For an eleven year old with probably an advanced
attention-span disorder, there were more than enough ‘new’ things to keep me
occupied; everywhere except school, of course.
At that age, I found most of the French people to be
friendly enough, since being eleven granted me a number of automatic
gaffes…especially, when I tried to start speaking French. My father was imminently affable, as was my
mom, and we did make friends with the locals.
The old town had a town square, and a weekly marketplace.
And a church built in medieval times. I
once ‘bartered’ my way from one, artificial rose, to three to give my mom,
and—frankly, dear friends—felt damn good about it, as if I had accomplished
something.
Besides school, which I hated, two more dread
chimeras swam into my so-so waters as one; dad had never lost one ounce of his
love of fishing, and two; a tip that the American Rod And Gun Club had leased
the rights to three, huge lakes, that were averred to be chuck-full of trout,
and an enormous lodge in the hollow of a
stretch of low mountains, surrounded by almost primeval forest, all of which
had seen action in WWI and II.
All of this affected my dad like a jolt of
amphetamine, and as soon as we could, we HAD to go check it out.
For our first couple of trips there, we drove
through endless plots of cultivated stretches, tiny, little towns, and trees,
trees, and more trees. Did I mention
trees? Having previously lived in Texas for three years, wide expanses of trees
were an anomaly, and forests were plainly unheard of.
Onward went we until we found ourselves on a narrow,
and unkempt road that gradually snaked up through mighty hills and dales,
and…trees, until, at the top, the road dipped down to where the lakes were.
And I will allow that as nature goes, this was a
pleasant enough spot, surrounded by ancient forest, which was eerily and hugely
quiet. A small, dirt track lined the
sides of the lakes, and dad fished all three of the lakes. And—in consequence—brought back about twenty
trout(s)(?), which he gave to our French friends who ran the bakery in Etain;
they were, of course delighted, dad was ecstatic, mom was ‘duty done’, and I
had had a marginally good time exploring the woods. Even our dog ‘King’ seemed to benefit from
the romp. And, BTW, the French pronunciation of Trout is ‘Treat’.
My dear dad--still very much bitten by the
bug—sometime later insisted that we spend a week vacation there. Huh???
We had no access to the large, and imposing lodge; there were only
concrete-walled ‘bathrooms’, with no running water, and no way to flush; and no
place to set up camp, except as a make-shift cooking hut, put together by
pieces of tarpaulin at the rear of our 1962 Chevrolet Impala station wagon.
My dad, who served in WWII and Korea, could have
slept on a Gramophone pin, so comfort at any level was easy to be found…for
him. For my dear mom, for whom an
afternoon’s fishing marked her connubial ticket, as paid in full, began to look
Heavenward, praying for intervention, and probably escape.
What we got—instead—was rain. It began to rain the afternoon we got there,
and continued without let up, until the day we finally packed up, and came
home.
If, indeed, my mom had prayed for rain, her prayers
were answered in spades. For, after an
hour or so of gentle drizzle, suddenly the skies ripped opened, and we were in
a deluge like something out of the Old Testament.
The flimsy tarpaulin flapped and waved, and gradually
fell apart. The smoke from our
make-shift cook fire bellowed in our faces, and, before you could say ‘Treat”,
we were soaked to the marrow. And…did I
mention that it was cold? Really cold? And that being thoroughly wet AND cold, would
be a torture to anyone, especially, and eleven year old boy.
I doubt that the wonderful engineers at Chevrolet
had ever envisioned three people and a dog, scrunched together in the back of a
station wagon, trying to sleep.
At dawn, the rain had slacked a little, and dad--
like a kid let loose in the toy department of F.A.O Schwartz—bundled-up in all
kinds of G.I. anti-inclement weather gear, slithered out with fishing equipment
at hand, eager to spend a day of chasing Trout.
After a somewhat tired sigh, my mom followed, (I
suppose it as either that, or, immediate divorce), and, with absolutely nothing
to do, out I popped, sure as shootin that we’d all somehow drown, or have our
bodies lost in the woods, to be found after the Spring thaw.
After me came King, who vanished into the greenery,
to try to catch up with my dad ( so much for ‘man’s best friend! ). Sometimes,
it’s a very good thing that dogs can’t talk, though I did feel that he resented
us for some time after.
The word ‘enough’ is usually not to be found in the
lexicon of any deranged angler, but, as I recall it now, after three or four
days, even my late father had had enough; and there arrived home three, people,
two of which were extremely disgruntled, and one pet, all of whom smelled like
wood smoke; wet-and-slept-in clothes; and of wet doggy fur.
We each spent hours, trying to bathe with a hot
water heater that contained just two gallons. I remember even large pots of
water were heated on the stove, so that we each could soak in some semblance of
luxury; I recall that several thoughts—like drifting clouds—wafted-through my
mind; one, that I would never, ever be the kind of ‘outdoorsman’ that my father
was; two, how quickly did any, possible novelty of a situation become as
tedious, and/or without end, and; three, that this would not be my last ‘family
camping trips’ that I would—at my tender age have to endure.
And, if I may add a fourth and fifth, it would be
that the most important thing was that we were together, and therefore,
‘suffered’ as a family, and lastly, that of the memories that have lasted to
this day—besides the deathless-and-breathless-ones, were the beauty of the
tranquil lakes, surrounded by the elegiac nobility, if I may use that term, of
the towering forest that surrounded us, trees that were hundreds of years old.
Regardless of my trying to somehow make of it all, a
rambling ’wanderjahr ’of our excursion, it nevertheless took weeks to rid the
Impala of the smell, the least of which was the lingering smell of dead fish;
we would have to drive with all the windows down, and still, there was always
one or two people who made ‘sniffing’ noises at us at church.
That must—in part—be why to this day, I consider
‘roughing it’ as a week spent in a Holiday Inn without cable. And of fishing—God
rest my dear father’s soul—I was never ‘bitten’ by the bug, and would as
soon—if I could but afford it—limit my ‘fishing’ to that which could be found
inside a grocery store.
And now, both dear Daisy and I detest getting wet,
and I, especially, cannot tolerate rain or water on my glasses, particularly That’s probably why I do not wear them in the
shower.
But, some of those lessons learned so long ago have
not lost their luster; neither have they lost my fixed determination to never,
ever do them again.
And so, my wonderfully kind, and caring friends, I
would like to wish for you days of ‘no pain’, happy times, enjoyable times,
without dread, or need. And as much true
happiness as your kind hearts can hold.
And if you can afford it, as a family, to seek out
those rare gems that our great Country still has to offer, I wish for you no
calamity, accident, or injury, while you—too—seek to investigate as a loving,
family unit.
And in your travels, and varied journeys, should you
ever, ever, ever manage to land that ‘record’ trout, I’ll give it a quick
smooch for luck for you, but, dears, remember that is all!
Please,
please know I love you dearly,
‘Zahc’/Charles
