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 18th 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”.
Be First to Comment