Category: Uncategorized

In the Circle the Wagons camp group, your camp name is a big deal. For example, even if Tom’s girl friend is real, she will not get a camp name right away for we have rules about names and have a naming ceremony and everything else that happens while drunk as hell.  To be named, you must show up on two consecutive years, and the other already named campers nominate various names which then get voted on. The name getting the most votes then gets emblazoned on a tee shirt by Judy and presented at next year’s campout.  All children are “Camp Kid” until their 18^th birthday when they receive a formal adult name. Well that is how it supposed to work, but in reality, if Judy does not like the name, she just embroiders whatever she feels is appropriate and that’s the name they get stuck with.   

Changing names is a big deal and is generally forbidden.  So far only Alan (why is it always Alan?) has requested a name change.  He felt that even though he named himself, he was drunk as hell when it happened and as he was arguing with Bobby it had just slipped out of his pie hole without thinking.  Although many of us present thought that was a totally bogus argument, we went ahead and entertained the idea of a name change just to humor him as he was the only one who had brought jet skis that year.  At the Saturday campfire that year we spent the better part of an hour arguing for and against his request to change his name and trying to decide on a new name.  I personally thought that my suggestion was best: “Camp Compensating For ↓” where the arrow points at the area where old one eye the wonder worm resides.  That got a few laughs but unfortunately only one vote.  These were several suggestions denigrating his political affiliations, “Camp Gingrich”, “Camp Bush Lover”, but the winner was “Camp Formulator” as he is always figuring out ways to prorate the cost of the campsites or some other group expense, based on the number of people in a familial group, and how much space they take up, minus how much gas they brought for the jet skis, along with prorated maintenance cost, demurrage with depreciation.  He soon loses us all in his fuzzy math and we end up paying whatever he tells us we owe.  I should note here that Alan’s day job is a mortgage loan officer.  So he is kinda like a used car salesman who sells overpriced cars. The next year when we all showed up at Big Lake, Judy awarded him his new name on a freshly purchased tee shirt which was emblazoned with “Camp Five Minutes” which is the name she had picked out for him all along.  So it goes.

One of the fun activities at Big Lake is ATV riding.  Depending on who comes, there have been as few as three to as many as a dozen quads and motorcycles with which to explore the trails and forest service roads around the campground.  The most memorable ride occurred a few years back when ten of us went for a short ride on what Alan described as an easy trail.  As it was about 30 years since I spent any trail time on a bike, I was a little nervous but was pleasantly surprised and proud of myself when I discovered that I still had it.  Within a few minutes of leaving camp I felt like I had never stopped riding.  The bike I was on was a dream compared to my old BSA 441CC that I had in my youth.  It flew over the ruts and small rocks.   Soon I was back to standing on the pegs and felt that I was in complete control.  Camp Five Minutes was in the lead and he would stop occasionally to allow the slower ones among us to keep up.  Then off he would go followed by Camp Slut.  I was regaining my riding competence and confidence.   I was determined to keep up with the big boys after the next stop.  OK so one of the big boys was a 48-year-old grandmother, but she had been riding for 30 years and was on a quad which is a lot more stable than the bike I was on.  For a bit I was doing really well.  Although they had all passed me, I was still in sight of them when coming off a hill I ran into soft sand.  Even in my prime I was never good in soft sand.  I was not 10 feet into this trap when over the bars I went and found out that the sand only looked soft.  After a minute I staggered to my feet, got the bike up, and then spent the next five minutes trying to get it started.  When it finally started, I slammed it into gear as I was going to catch up for at that point, I was more embarrassed than hurt.  

I should have pushed the bike out of the soft sand.  I managed to move about 10 feet before going down a second time.  Although I did not go over the handlebars, I wished that I had because the handlebars slammed into my rib cage when I went down.  Now I was really pissed, but this time I was smart enough to move the bike out of the trap before proceeding.  For the next twenty minutes of the ride I kept up with Alan.  Actually, he followed me but was nice enough to say that I was really kicking some ass.  When I finally made it back to camp without further injury, I waded out in the lake with my clothes on and lay in the cool water for half an hour, praising God that I had only bruised my ribs and pride.  I felt I was being cleansed clean of my sins.  “Thank you, Lord,” I silently whispered, “for showing me humility”.  “Thank you for good friends that did not laugh at an old fat fool trying to recapture his youth.  And Lord I promise not to go motorcycling again.  Next time I’ll stick to quads”.

For those of you who are new to this blog.  I assume that you will start at the first one rather than jumping to the current chapters to see who done it. If you are one of those, I bet you use to partially unwrap and rewrap your Christmas presents and then had to fake surprise when you opened them Christmas day.  You are lying bastards! I would never do this, probably because I was bad at the rewrapping part.  For my current post you will at least need to read the previous one to get the full meaning or you will likely be confused.   

LoriAnne became the Circle the Wagons secretary because she had everybody’s EMAIL addresses and seems to enjoy writing group camping announcements.  For example, our yearly Big Lake adventure is announced by a flurry of EMAILs usually initiated by her.  Below is a pretty much unedited example from our 2007 trip invite with my comments in brackets and italics.

START OF EMAILs

From: LoriAnne

To: Circle the Wagons Group

Ahhhhh…..Summer is here. I realized yesterday that the word “Summer” doesn’t mean as much as it used to. So I started to do a mental list of what “summer” meant to me when I was a child and what it means to me now. I thought I would share that list with you all now.

LoriAnne’s meaning of summer age 10:

1. NO SCHOOL

2. Sleeping in

3. Playing with friends

4. NO SCHOOL

5. Camping

6. Playing with friends

7. Staying up late

8. NO SCHOOL

9. All the TV I could watch

10. No homework

11. Not having to get out of my pajama’s all day

12. NO SCHOOL

LoriAnne’s meaning of summer age 29:

1. More traffic on Friday’s because of stupid people taking their stupid families on weekend trips.

2. Rush Hour with no A/C in my car.

3. Dealing with 3 weeks of humid heat or biting the bullet and getting an A/C for my house so my power bill is higher than the winter

4. Due to NO School, having to add daycare for my 10 year old.

5. Having to fight my 10 year old to go to bed at the same time he went during the school year because he has to go to daycare.

6. Camping.

7. Trying to live vicariously through my Son’s eyes to try and enjoy summer.

8. Allergies .

9. Putting out an extra bowl of water for the dog so she doesn’t overheat during the day.

10. More traffic

Reading my lists makes me think of two things:

1) I need to invent a time machine to go back in time 19 years and tell myself NEVER grow up and

2) I think I should give my son homework for the summer so when he becomes my age he won’t miss the good ole’ days of carefree summers and he won’t become a cynic about the whole season. 

I did also notice that there is one thing on both lists that was a positive. Camping. (I’m guessing that some of you just now realized the point of my email and for those of you who are kind of dense (Tom) I will spell it out…B-I-G-L-A-K-E.  That’s right boys and girls we are one month and counting to the single most anticipated event of the year. (Wow! Are we really that pathetic?)  So we need to hammer out some details and make some announcements:

1. Due to being on the verge of a breakthrough on finding the cure of Cancer/AIDS/and Herpes (cause that is about the only reason why anyone would miss this event) our Camp President will not be able to attend this years Big Lake event.

2. Due to the recent out break of the Asian Bird flu, we ask that no one bring any Asian birds.
3. Please please please, if you have a camp name and shirt, please bring them and wear them for the main camp so we can rub it in to those who don’t have shirts or names and so we can remember each other’s names.  Sorry Rufus [Tom is Alan’s half brother and Rufus is his dog, a very intelligent and distinguished looking German short  haired pointer] does not have a shirt yet, but he can always wear his shoes to prove he has style.  [This refers to Tom buying dog shoes for Ruffie so that he could run in the sand without hurting his feet.  Rufus wore them, but was obviously embarrassed for his master.]
4. We need volunteers for scoring enough sites, i.e. people that can join the Boese’s on Wednesday night.

 [Judy and I always go up a day early.  This is mainly because no one ever seems to think about reserving camping space at Big Lake for the next season’s campout till it’s too late.   This means that the sites we get are first come first serve.  Even though there are usually sites available up till Friday evening, they are not together and not close to the lake.  Which means that Judy and I must go up early, usually Weds. evening and snag and pay for as many sites as possible.  This is not technically legal, so we put up tents, camping chairs, coolers, and park our pickup in the camping space next to ours.  All this is so that the cool people can make a fashionably late entrance to the camp and still have a space.  This would be OK with us but the cool people never seem to make it when they say they are going to and the most of the camp ground hosts at places like this are wise to the fact that the campground is not really occupied especially when the tent blew down in the middle of the night.  And they know who is doing this as there is our trailer without a vehicle to tow it with.  This shit really pisses me off, so I make a big stink about how I am not going to do this ever again.  How come some of the cool people can’t seem to get their asses up to Big Lake on Weds. night to help us?  Alan did get the hint one year, setting up an entire camp by himself with a tent and coolers and chairs and firewood.  Then left and didn’t come back till Sat. afternoon.  So, who did the gun carrying campground host bug about the obviously unused site? Me of course.  I guess I just have one of those faces.]

5. Could everyone please bring 2 cans of bug spray for a communal attack of terror and genocide on the mosquito population.

6. Since last year was the Big Lake skip year for the decade, Wade and Paul will need to get the official camp names on Saturday.  Please start thinking of ideas for their official names for the camp vote.

[Good move LoriAnne, this will give people plenty of time to come up with nasty and disgusting camp names.]

Details to hammer out:

Please respond with answers to the following information:

1. What kind of site will you need (tent or camper)

2. Estimated arrival day (Wed, Thurs, Fri, Sat). 

[There had better be one of you fuckers who show up on Weds. cause I am not going to do it this year.]

3.Why Brown-n-serve, was she not good enough for fresh sausage meat? 

[This one requires a bit of explanation.  When Alan was between his first and second wives, we met him at Hoodoo Ski bowl during Winter Fest.  He had parked his camper in a spot where he could hook up to electric probably because he had brought a date and wanted extra heat for naked fest.  His mistake was in leaving his garbage in a container outside of the camper for all, including LoriAnne, to see.  Inside of the box was a package of brown and serve sausage with a used condom on top of the box.  LoriAnne will never let go of this one.   Wouldn’t surprise me in the least that when Alan departs this world that she buys his tombstone just so she can put: “Here lays Alan a.k.a. old brown and serve.  Beloved father of 2 or 5 and possibly more.  A really good friend and too big to flush”. ]

4.Why doesn’t Tom have a girlfriend?

  [This is a question we all asked ourselves. Tom is good looking, has a well-paying job, drives a nice “pickup” truck, does not smell funny and has a great dog, the afore mentioned Rufus.  We are also pretty sure that Tom has not known a woman in the biblical sense.  We are not so sure about Rufus.  We are also not so sure about Tom and Rufus, but that is too disgusting even for me to go there.]     

5.Why is the plural for Moose, Moose?

[No special meaning here.  Random thoughts just pop into my daughter’s head.]

Thank you for your time in this matter

Your Camp Secretary

Camp Easy

 [This is LoriAnne’s camp name, as her father I don’t want to know the details on how she earned it and beside what happens in a Vegas elevator stays in a Vegas elevator.] 

From Judy

To Circle the Wagons Group.

We just got back from a camping trip with Alan, Tom and Rufus.  Tom announced that he now has a serious girlfriend, but strangely did not produce a picture.  However, Camp Safety? and Camp Toy (Camp Safety’s? wife) was also there and confirmed that in fact he does seem to have a girlfriend and that she likes to eat veggies.

[I am not sure I believe it as she sounds too good to be true.  Tom might just be hiding deeper in the closet with Rufus but as for now we must take him at his word.  You can tell by LoriAnne’s next EMAIL that she is a little dubious as well.]

From LoriAnne

To Circle the Wagons

I would like to extend my apologies to Tom. See I composed my last email before I heard that he now has a girlfriend. I would just like to make my opinion noted that as happy as everyone seems about these new events in his life, I do not think that a blow-up doll constitutes a real girlfriend. But if this is who he has chosen we will all embrace her with open arms, and we will all try not to pop her with our fingernails.

[As my darling daughter did not get much response to her first EMAIL she sent out this one a week later]

From: LoriAnne

To: Circle the wagons group

3 weeks and counting down:

Things a person can accomplish in 3 weeks:

1. Write a short story (or if you don’t need sleep write a great novel)

2. Read 3 books

3. Completely overhaul a car

4. Teach a dog to sit and possibly mind

5. Drive across country

6. Train for a marathon

7. Fully quit smoking

8. REHAB

9. Run for a Political office seat

10. Color your hair 15 different colors

11. Heal from plastic surgery

12. Get cured from the Clap

13. Take an at home course that Sally Struthers talks about and the list could go on and on and on.

Things we need you to do in 3 weeks:

1. Let us know when you are planning on arriving at Big Lake

2. Let us know what type of camping spot you desire (tent, camper, 2 tent spots)

3. Put in any special requests or comments

4. Volunteer to help hold sites

5. Plan and Pack

See, not much. We really need to get an idea of who is coming when and the types/amounts of spots we will be needing to save.

For example:

Paul, Carly [LoriAnne’s friend] and Children will be arriving early afternoon on Friday 7/20

Wade and Aaron will be arriving evening of Friday 7/20 as will LoriAnne and Bob [Carly’s husband] 

[Why is Carly driving up with LoriAnne’s husband and LoriAnne is driving up with Carly’s husband?   Do I want to know?]

We will need 3 tents spots and room in the Boese camper for 2 adults and a toddler

Okay so with that said are there any special requests? OOOOHHHH OOOHHH I have one (but I think I’ve used up my requests by going off on needing info from everyone, so I will shut up now)

WARNING: Emails will continue until we have a reasonable idea of who’s coming when.  When we are down to the 2-week mark phone calls will start.  When we are down to the 1-week count stalking will start.  And if we don’t have an idea the day of, well those who show up and need a space will be in the selection pool for sacrifices to appease the rain gods.  We will start with the virgins and move down the list from there (Wow Tom how do you always get the short end of the stick? And Alan, lucky you, will be last.  I think you should get my camp name)

From: Carly

To: LoriAnne

I am going to go up with Paul, so whenever he is planning on getting there. I need to have a tent spot. Thanks.

From: LoriAnne

To: Circle the Wagons Group

WOOOOWHOOO! My threats worked on someone!!!!

From: Tom

To: LoriAnne

CC: Circle the Wagons Group

Woman, I didn’t even blink twice: I just need a parking spot for my truck.  Heheheheh.

[What to hell is Heheheheh mean?  Is Tom romantically involved with his pick-up?  Word of advice for ya there big fella, let the tail pipe cool a bit.]

From: LoriAnne

To: Tom

CC: Circle the Wagons Group

Are you saying that I’m not intimidating?

From: Tom

To: LoriAnne:

CC: Circle the Wagons Group

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.     I believe from my 6 months of woman experience now

that I recognize this type of a question.   This is what you call LOADED.  So what has worked in the last 6 months I will try now.  I am sorry, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.

P.S.  Hey guys, what do you think, not bad for a rookie

From: Judy

To: Tom

CC: Circle the Wagons Group

Keep it up…you do okay for a rookie…but please note…others far more experienced have tried the same tactic, and they will tell you..once you start down the slippery slope, you will be shoveling doo somewhere because what guys see as subtle avoidance women know is just more BS!

 [You better not be talking about me woman!]

From: Tom

To: Judy

CC: Circle the Wagon’s Group

Good to know my stunning queen.

From: LoriAnne

To: Judy

CC: Circle the Wagon’s Group

I really hate to say this…but you two could learn a lot from him…

 [You two?  Is she referring to Judy and I?  What is she saying here?  That I don’t know how to compliment women?  I know all about compliments and fore play.  I will admit it was a little rough at the start.  Lines like “get in the truck bitch” and “Hey babe, do you want to rub pee things” usually did not go over well, but I learned.]

From: Bruce

To: Circle the Wagons Group

“MY STUNNING QUEEN”!!!!!!  OMG!  Not only is that the stupidest most contrived BS compliment I have ever heard, and the bitch seems to be buying it!!!!

From: LoriAnne

To: Bruce;

CC: Circle the Wagon’s Group

You sure that it didn’t work?? Judy did you swoon? If she swooned, then it worked.

From: Judy

To: LoriAnne

CC: Circle the Wagons Group

I swooned.

 [Well there goes 50 years of my sexual education down the outhouse hole.]

From: Bruce

To: Judy

Hey babe, want to rub pee things?

END OF EMAILS