A very special memory of mine was my first experience at camping out. I remember I was seven years old when Mom bought a tent for me, a real tent! This was a factory made tent and not the blanket over the clothes line type. It was great! It was square and the door had an awning over it, and it was yellow and red with an Indian chief’s picture on the side. I would spend hours ever day playing in it but what I really wanted to do was sleep out in it at night.
It was well into the summer when it finally happened. The evening was cool and the locust, (as we called them), were buzzing in the trees. It had been a fun day, we had moved my tent to the front yard, I suspect because it was killing the grass where it was. I spent the day playing in it and when evening came we had our nightly ritual of throwing rocks or our flip flop thongs up at the bats and watch them chase them back to the ground. Of course this came after the every night lighting bug catch. When it was too dark to see, Mom called us in for the night.
My Aunt Pauline was staying with us on this night. She was my mom’s older sister. She was a heavy woman and very jolly for the most part. There were times as I was growing up that she lived with us, as did many other relatives, but on this night it seems she was just visiting. I came into the house, sweaty from running from the bats and I sat down beside her and we talked. I was telling her about my tent and how I wished I could sleep out in it but mom wouldn’t allow me to be out there all night alone. She then spoke the words that would be the highlight of my entire day “ Well Jackie” she said, “I will sleep out there with you tonight.“ I couldn’t believe it, after making her convince me that she was really going to do it I sprang to my feet and started packing.
I went to the bedroom and gathered up two pillows and some blankets. Mom packed us some cookies and some Koolaid and then of course a flashlight. After she had checked to make sure that I had gotten everything we headed out into the dark and towards the tent. It was very dark in the neighborhood back then. It was long before the days of the glowing orange streetlights that line the street now. With the flashlight lighting our way we made it to the tent, opened the door and set up camp. After we were settled in I layed there beside her eating cookies, as I listened to her telling me stories. This was turning out to be a wonderful night.
After awhile she started getting sleepy and she told me it was time that we go to sleep. We got under our blankets and got settled in and then I turned off the flashlight. I don’t think I realized how dark it was going to be when the light went out, but I layed there silently listening to the noises of the night time bugs. I remember after about five minutes asking her if she thought this was spooky. I really didn’t need her opinion of how scary it was, I think I was just hoping that she was still awake. She was and she told me not to worry, and said that we would be all right as long as those ants don’t come in here and carry us out. My eyes shot wide open!
She was referring to a bug spray commercial that had recently been airing on the television set. It showed an animated family of four sleeping in a tent when an army of ants came in and carried them away as they slept. Of course this would have been prevented had they used this company’s bug spray.
Now I was lying there staring at the ceiling of the tent and my heart beating faster with every minute that passed. After about fifteen minutes, as bad as I hated to I told her that I was scared and asked if we could go back into the house. The thought of that army of ants lurking out there in the dark was more than I could take. She tried to assure me that that wasn’t going to happen but it was too late, the damage had been done. She finally gave in, and we closed up the tent and retreated to the house. I was a little embarrassed about asking to come back in, but she assured me it was all right and that we would try it again sometime.
Now as look back at that adventure I don’t see it as the great failure that it seemed to be in those days. It is now a very nice memory for me to go back to and relive from time to time. As I said before my Aunt Pauline wasn’t a small woman and looking back I now realize that it wasn’t easy for her to get down on her hands and knees and crawl into that small damp tent with me. She did it only to try to fulfill a small boy’s dream of camping out, and even though it was short lived she did succeed in her attempt. I wonder how many of us would do the same? We lost Aunt Pauline in 1981 but her memory will always live on in my mind.
Jack Roberts – August 2002
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Reviewed by Smoke Martin
8/27/2002
Another great Jack Adventure. Love the pic of you and the tent. Great job
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