BACKROADS AND BOBTAILS
CAMPING EVOLUTION ONLY A THEORY
by Bob Kornegay

In the beginning was chaos.

All of you who remember kid camping trips will relate to that statement. You'll recall poorly planned, spur-of-themoment sleep-outs featuring mosquitoes, poison ivy, haphazardly pitched toy tents, and the perils of darkness with its inherent demons and hidden axe murderers. You, too, have screamed, "I want my mama!" in a loud voice in the middle of the night.

You'll be reminded of your first clumsy attempts at outdoor cooking: cheap, incredibly greasy hamburger charred down to little shards of cinder, then crumbled and mixed with a can of undercooked pork and beans opened with a gritty, slimy, unwashed pocketknife blade. You still deem it incredible that did not kill you.

You sweated profusely in bulky, overstuffed sleeping bags or old furniture pads and risked inglorious, hypothermic death when you forgot them.

You dashed madly from a crowded tent to answer sudden calls of nature in the predawn dark. (Burnt burger, cold beans, and creek water will do that to you.) On the way, you encountered obstacles that tripped, ripped, and snagged. One cannot watch his feet when he must be constantly on the lookout for nighttime demons and axe murderers.

Having survived until daybreak, you arose, wedged between two companions who looked and smelled as badly as yourself. Sitting up, stretching, and yawning after maybe 45 total minutes of sleep, each kid camper enthusiastically announced to the world how much fun he'd had.

Then you grew up.

Ragged toy tents evolved into high-priced, state-of-theart, synthetic-fabric shelters. World-War-Two-era sleeping bags became lightweight, comfortable marvels of modern textile technology, keeping you cool in summer and warm in winter. You bought a clean-fuel camp stove. You read up on camping safety and sanitation. You learned; you evolved. You chuckled and told amusing stories about camping when you were a kid.

Then you went grown-up camping, and…

The mosquitoes are still there, ignorant of the fact that you are now a sage and savvy outdoorsman. Poison ivy continues to look just like certain other, less noxious and nontoxic species of flora. And, doggone it, it still gets dark after sunset, motivating the appearance of descendants of those long-ago demons and axe murderers. Mama is now miles, not yards, away.

You are shocked to learn that propane stoves can burn ground beef just as black as will a too-hot campfire. Likewise, pork and beans can still come off cold, even when opened by a clean, safetyblade can opener. The saving grace is you are now over 21. You can chase it all down with beer rather than creek water.

You find you still must make those occasional mad dashes in the dark. Only now you realize you have "prudently" established the latrine site three times the distance from your tent. How many more roots, briar patches, and demons now hide in that added space?

Somehow, you once more live through it all. Again you awake, snugly ensconced by those same two buddies, who are emitting noises and aromas akin to those heard and sniffed around a trailer-load of grainfed steers. Your eyes water, and the coughing doesn't subside until you rapidly exit the tent and emerge into the fresh morning air.

Later, over steaming mugs of foul-tasting, over-boiled coffee, each of you gaze nostalgically off into the distance and murmur about how much fun it's been.

Then the present, and reality, re-enters everyone's thoughts.

"How much you gonna ask for the tent?" asks one camper." And the stove?" queries the other.

"Not sure," you wistfully reply. "They'll both go dang cheap, though."