day late
money? whats that?
Forward. TBer's, I'm going to try to run this somewhat concurrent with the locksmith stories. Much has happened around the home front over the past few years, and I intend to write out at least part of it to better understand it all. So, if you aren't afraid to take a little trip through part of my past, welcome aboard. Maybe you'll find some answers to questions about me. I do ask that comments, if any be placed on another thread to keep this one readable. Without further delay, I bring you a work in progress that I call,
The Last Hunt Camp
CHAPTER ONE
This is the story of the annual family hunt camp. A story over fifty years in the making, and I suppose if anyone tells it, it has to be me. Of the original group, there isn’t anyone else left. Just one other, and while in some ways he pre-dates me, in others he doesn’t. But to tell the story in full, we have to go back to before the beginning.
Dad was born and raised in Central Florida. He was raised during the depression, which affected his view on life. That in turn affected the point of view of myself and my two brothers as well. Dad would tell the story about how, more than once, when times were tight, he would go to a local creek and tickle up some fish for supper. For those who may not know, that means he would place his hands in the water trying to make his fingers look like fish food. When a fish got close enough, he would grab it and throw it onto the shore before it could flip for the first time. He fed the family supper more than once that way. That was one of the many lessons he taught us over the years. Not just how to catch fish, but how you do your all for your family. Dad was always like that. Not just providing the lesson, but also by providing the example. That would come back to me years later. But that’s another story.
Mom was born and raised in New Jersey. Her upbringing was typical for a young lady of her time. As she grew into an adult, she found she had one thing that she dearly loved to do. On the weekends, she and her friends would all get together and head for the roller-skating rink. A place for them to hang out and do the things that young folks do in every generation. The things they try to make sure their parents don’t find out about. Of course, back in the late forties that was smoke a cigarette, or have a shot or two of alcohol. But it was what they did at the time. Mom wasn’t a real party girl, but she did like to be where the action was. And if stories she tells can be trusted, she had no shortage of interested young men. Young men who were respectful of her WW II Navy Vet. father. A man who had faced fire at least once that he mentioned. A somewhat important part of the war. His ship took fire at Normandy. He never spoke of what happened beyond that, like so many of his kind. He never said why his ships commander gave him the flag that flew from the mast at Normandy. He never explained the bullet and shrapnel holes in it. He just kept it folded and in a closet. It was he who also inspected all suitors.
The odd thing about the entire story is that my mother shared the same vice with my father. Roller skating. But with him in Florida and her in New Jersey, how did this couple ever meet? Enter the U.S. Army and the Korean War. Dad was drafted and sent to New Jersey for training. One Saturday evening he and a friend of his decided to spend some of their off-duty hour’s skating. Mom and her friends were already at the rink when Dad got there. Now the next part, maybe it’s true, maybe it’s reality colored by time and love. I don’t know, and I don’t judge. Mom swears that she happened to look up at the time Dad came through the door. At that moment she knew two things. He was the most handsome man she had ever seen, and this man would be the father of her children.
Dad didn’t see Mom at first. He sat down, put on his skates and had made a number of laps around the rink before he saw her. According to him but when he did, he told the guy he was with that he was going to marry that girl. He also said it before he even asked her to skate with him.
True? I don’t know. I wasn’t there. But because they were, I am here along with at least one of my two brothers. I can also attest to the fact that while Mom and Dad had their moments in the decades that followed, there was never a doubt to their commitment to each other and our family. In all honesty, they were the parents all the other kids wished they had. During football season, every weekend, in our living room it was wall to wall boys. They were watching whatever game they agreed on, and not only did every young man in the room refer to my mother as “Mom”, but she enjoyed it as much as they did. And may The Lord help anyone in that room that disrespected my mother. The other boys present would teach him the error of his ways. Even now at the age of ninety, there are some still around from those days. And as old men collecting Social Security, they still call her Mom.
Did they let us get away with murder? Not a chance! Dad once made a paddle in the shape of a key. He then engraved on it,
“The Key To Well Behaved Children.”
Dad had quite a sense of humor. And he did use that key from time to time. And you know something? We deserved it. My brothers and I were known to get into things that maybe we shouldn’t have. Where we lived at the time was outside the suburbs of Orlando. Back then we only had three channels on the T.V. All three were black and white, and one of them was fuzzy. Entertainment, especially in the summer time, was something we had to make up for ourselves.
Now, Orlando is like any other city. It has its growth spurts. Some people think the city will expand quicker than it does and a housing development that should have been in town in a few years may take decades to actually become part of the city. That’s where we grew up. Outside of town, but not really country. And not a lot to do. But there was one summer when we found a couple of new games to play. One was to climb to the top of a pine sapling and begin to swing it side to side. Where we are at in the tree is between twenty and thirty feet off the ground. The trick is to get the tree top as close to the ground as you can before you jump out of the tree. The guy who falls the shortest distance, without breaking the tree in half with all the side-to-side swinging, wins.
We had another one that we all took out turns at. One of the three of us would climb to the top of one of those pine saplings. For this game the tree had to be taller. Something in the forty-to-fifty-foot range. Once the climber is secure in his position, the two at the bottom of the tree cut it down. I am here to tell you it was quite the trip on the way down. (YEEHAW!!!) The trick to not getting hurt was to time it so you jumped to the side from the falling tree just before it hit the ground. That way while you hit at the same speed, it was at an angle, so you sort of bounced and rolled along the ground until you stopped. All of us rode that tree at one time or another. So, if we did this kind of thing just for fun, I’m sure you can see where the three of us could prove to be a handful.
Especially since not only were we brothers, we were also each other’s alibi. It wasn’t until we were adults with children of our own that Mom and Dad finally got the answers to questions they had wondered about for a long time. Usually as we sat around the fire during the hunt camp. The three of us would get started telling stories to visitors to the camp of things we did as kids. Mom and Dad would just listen until the story was through, then look at the teller of the tale and ask,
“You mean THAT’S how those dimples got into the baseboard? I’ve been wondering about that for forty years.”
They did confess that they learned more about us, from us, just by listening to the stories we told. The hunt camp was a bonding experience for all of us. It is true, hunt camp was mostly an all-male thing, but if and when Mom showed up everything changed. The call would go up,
“Lady in camp!”
Empty drink cans, adult beverages and otherwise, were quickly swept off of tables, into garbage bags. Food was stuffed into coolers. Tent flaps were pulled shut to cover unmade beds and clothes spread everywhere inside. It was one of Dad’s rules. A lady in camp is to be treated and respected as well as can possibly be done. In short, she walked on water and don’t you forget it. We didn’t. Long after the key to well behaved children was no longer needed, Mom was treated the same way. And still is by her surviving children.
And really, that’s how it began. As a young family coming up in the late fifties through the sixties, we were comfortably middle class. Mom stayed at home while Dad was off to work every day, for the early part of our lives. Later on, as we grew, Mom got bored at home and went back to work. We had all that we needed and a lot of what we wanted. Even if we may not have always had it as soon as we wanted. It took Mom until 1968 before she ever owned her first brand-new-never-been-owned-by-anyone-before car. So, money wasn’t something we had a lot of. Dad decided that with a tribe like ours going to certain places on vacation was out of the question just due to expense. That’s when he hit on the idea of going camping. Not that Dad was cheap mind you. But camping provided an inexpensive vacation where parents and children are together for the weekend finding things to do to have fun. It was the prefect answer. Three very active boys being given a forest to play in and a lake to swim in to their hearts content for the entire weekend. We loved it. Dad began to teach us things. How do you start a fire with just one match? How do you keep the fire alive in a rain storm? What is the best way to pitch a tent when you know it is going to rain during the night? How do you track an animal? Do you know how to find wood that will ignite and burn easily on a wet day? On and on the lessons went. Some of them turned into games we played over and over again.
One such game went by two names. The first was ‘sneak attack’ while the second was ‘Indian attack’. It was great for three young men who were each out to prove they were better than their brothers. The game was simple enough. Each of us was given a piece of paper with our name written on it. Without the benefit of flashlights, we were sent into the night. One person would remain in camp and was free to move about. His limit of movement was the ring of light made by the camp-fire. He also had a flashlight. The people outside of camp would now use the darkness and shadows to try to creep far enough into camp to place their paper in plain sight in the firelight, then sneak back out again without getting caught. The person in the camp would be moving around and watching for the others. If he thought he saw someone, he shown his light on them and called them by name. If he was right, the person who was ‘caught’ would have to give up. If the watcher was wrong, he had to turn off the light, close his eyes and count to ten loudly. Sweeping the area with the light was not allowed.
This simple game taught us. It taught us how light in a dark environment can affect how much and how well you see in the darkness. From both sides of the fire. For example, if you are trying to get into camp, don’t look right at the fire. The light from it will ruin your natural night vision for several minutes after that. If you are inside the camp looking out, don’t look at the fire for the same reason. As the watcher you need to be able to look into those shadows and see if anything is moving around. You don’t need to identify it yet, just notice movement in the night shadows. Then use the light to ID the target.
The game taught us the importance of sound during movement. A simple and fun game to prove the importance of sound, especially at night, is go to a quiet place, all alone. Then, throw a rock a short distance from you and listen to the amount of noise it makes. Go to the same place in the day-time and repeat the process. While the rock makes just as much noise both times, because of fewer distractions you hear more at night. Also, there is truth in the saying that as your body loses one sense, the other heighten to make up for it. When you can’t see as much, your sense of hearing tries to compensate. It was things like this that taught us how to move quietly through the woods during hunting season. One of my fondest memories of my father I share with one of my brothers. We were at the fire in camp telling lies about the mornings hunt, and discussing things that had happened to us that morning. It was then that Dad pointed at one of my brothers and myself and said,
“Those two, move through the woods like a whisper.”
Well, Dad is the one who taught us how to move quietly. He learned the importance of that during his time in the Korean War. What he said about us was probably thirty years ago, and my head still hasn’t returned to its proper size.
But that’s really where hunt camp began. Just the family going on vacation in the woods and learning about outdoorsmanship. Learning how to not only swim, but also about rescue. When Mom decided the house wasn’t enough, she took the training and the classes, and became a certified Red Cross Lifesaver/Instructor. Before I was thirteen, I had already earned a number of swimming badges, but when I became thirteen or fourteen, one of my badge qualifications was to swim a mile. You were allowed to rest from time to time by floating on your back, but at no time were you allowed to touch bottom. To do so was instant failure of the test. I passed it on the first try. Even now, all these years later, I can still pretty much swim like a fish. But, you know, all the training in the world is useless if when an emergency happens, you panic.
I said that Mom had become a Lifesaver/Instructor. Dad never bothered with that. He learned to swim as a kid and could out swim Mom any day of the week. But he did learn a few of the lifesaving techniques from her. So, one time we were camping a place where there was a dock which led out to the edge of a large natural spring. I guess by this time I was ten or eleven. It was in the fall, but a nice evening. That’s what made it seem strange to me when our parents insisted that we all dress warmly, with shoes and socks, when we went for an evening walk down to the spring. What made it even more odd was the fact that they were both dressed in bathing suits. But it’s Mom and Dad. Do what they say. Looking back now, there was another odd thing. None of us boys even thought about bringing warm clothing. So, how did it end up at the camp?
I remember we went for our walk. We watched the squirrels chase one another. Looked at the birds. When we got to the dock, of course the three of us were at the edge looking at the fish below us. I remember suddenly seeing my oldest brother go sailing off the dock and splashing into the water. Fully dressed. I remember thinking, ‘Oh man, is he in trouble.’ I noticed movement to my left and looked over in time to see my mother grab my other brother and throw him into the water to join the first one. By now, I am confused and have no idea of what’s going on. I looked up to see the smiling face of my father as he picked me up and made sure I joined my brothers in the water.
We were all, at Mom and Dad’s instructions, wearing heavy long pants, shoes and socks, heavy jackets, and long-sleeved shirts. I hit the water and all of Mom’s training kicked in. The first thing I did was get out of those shoes. No point in wearing anchors on your feet while trying to swim. The jacket was next. I thought about the pants, but it was only about ten feet to the ladder. I kept them and swam over to climb out. I joined my brothers on the dock as Mom came over with a big smile and dry towels. Dad dove in to retrieve three jackets and six shoes. Once everyone was out of the water, they explained to us what I just said. All the training in the world is useless if when something happens, and you freeze up. They had to know if we could handle ourselves in the water, and there was only one sure way to find out. It was quite the surprise at the time it happened, I must say. And honestly, even back then I could see just how much hard sense that made. It was like they say in the Army.
“Everyone is the prefect soldier, in the barracks. It’s a different thing in the field.”
The Last Hunt Camp
CHAPTER ONE
This is the story of the annual family hunt camp. A story over fifty years in the making, and I suppose if anyone tells it, it has to be me. Of the original group, there isn’t anyone else left. Just one other, and while in some ways he pre-dates me, in others he doesn’t. But to tell the story in full, we have to go back to before the beginning.
Dad was born and raised in Central Florida. He was raised during the depression, which affected his view on life. That in turn affected the point of view of myself and my two brothers as well. Dad would tell the story about how, more than once, when times were tight, he would go to a local creek and tickle up some fish for supper. For those who may not know, that means he would place his hands in the water trying to make his fingers look like fish food. When a fish got close enough, he would grab it and throw it onto the shore before it could flip for the first time. He fed the family supper more than once that way. That was one of the many lessons he taught us over the years. Not just how to catch fish, but how you do your all for your family. Dad was always like that. Not just providing the lesson, but also by providing the example. That would come back to me years later. But that’s another story.
Mom was born and raised in New Jersey. Her upbringing was typical for a young lady of her time. As she grew into an adult, she found she had one thing that she dearly loved to do. On the weekends, she and her friends would all get together and head for the roller-skating rink. A place for them to hang out and do the things that young folks do in every generation. The things they try to make sure their parents don’t find out about. Of course, back in the late forties that was smoke a cigarette, or have a shot or two of alcohol. But it was what they did at the time. Mom wasn’t a real party girl, but she did like to be where the action was. And if stories she tells can be trusted, she had no shortage of interested young men. Young men who were respectful of her WW II Navy Vet. father. A man who had faced fire at least once that he mentioned. A somewhat important part of the war. His ship took fire at Normandy. He never spoke of what happened beyond that, like so many of his kind. He never said why his ships commander gave him the flag that flew from the mast at Normandy. He never explained the bullet and shrapnel holes in it. He just kept it folded and in a closet. It was he who also inspected all suitors.
The odd thing about the entire story is that my mother shared the same vice with my father. Roller skating. But with him in Florida and her in New Jersey, how did this couple ever meet? Enter the U.S. Army and the Korean War. Dad was drafted and sent to New Jersey for training. One Saturday evening he and a friend of his decided to spend some of their off-duty hour’s skating. Mom and her friends were already at the rink when Dad got there. Now the next part, maybe it’s true, maybe it’s reality colored by time and love. I don’t know, and I don’t judge. Mom swears that she happened to look up at the time Dad came through the door. At that moment she knew two things. He was the most handsome man she had ever seen, and this man would be the father of her children.
Dad didn’t see Mom at first. He sat down, put on his skates and had made a number of laps around the rink before he saw her. According to him but when he did, he told the guy he was with that he was going to marry that girl. He also said it before he even asked her to skate with him.
True? I don’t know. I wasn’t there. But because they were, I am here along with at least one of my two brothers. I can also attest to the fact that while Mom and Dad had their moments in the decades that followed, there was never a doubt to their commitment to each other and our family. In all honesty, they were the parents all the other kids wished they had. During football season, every weekend, in our living room it was wall to wall boys. They were watching whatever game they agreed on, and not only did every young man in the room refer to my mother as “Mom”, but she enjoyed it as much as they did. And may The Lord help anyone in that room that disrespected my mother. The other boys present would teach him the error of his ways. Even now at the age of ninety, there are some still around from those days. And as old men collecting Social Security, they still call her Mom.
Did they let us get away with murder? Not a chance! Dad once made a paddle in the shape of a key. He then engraved on it,
“The Key To Well Behaved Children.”
Dad had quite a sense of humor. And he did use that key from time to time. And you know something? We deserved it. My brothers and I were known to get into things that maybe we shouldn’t have. Where we lived at the time was outside the suburbs of Orlando. Back then we only had three channels on the T.V. All three were black and white, and one of them was fuzzy. Entertainment, especially in the summer time, was something we had to make up for ourselves.
Now, Orlando is like any other city. It has its growth spurts. Some people think the city will expand quicker than it does and a housing development that should have been in town in a few years may take decades to actually become part of the city. That’s where we grew up. Outside of town, but not really country. And not a lot to do. But there was one summer when we found a couple of new games to play. One was to climb to the top of a pine sapling and begin to swing it side to side. Where we are at in the tree is between twenty and thirty feet off the ground. The trick is to get the tree top as close to the ground as you can before you jump out of the tree. The guy who falls the shortest distance, without breaking the tree in half with all the side-to-side swinging, wins.
We had another one that we all took out turns at. One of the three of us would climb to the top of one of those pine saplings. For this game the tree had to be taller. Something in the forty-to-fifty-foot range. Once the climber is secure in his position, the two at the bottom of the tree cut it down. I am here to tell you it was quite the trip on the way down. (YEEHAW!!!) The trick to not getting hurt was to time it so you jumped to the side from the falling tree just before it hit the ground. That way while you hit at the same speed, it was at an angle, so you sort of bounced and rolled along the ground until you stopped. All of us rode that tree at one time or another. So, if we did this kind of thing just for fun, I’m sure you can see where the three of us could prove to be a handful.
Especially since not only were we brothers, we were also each other’s alibi. It wasn’t until we were adults with children of our own that Mom and Dad finally got the answers to questions they had wondered about for a long time. Usually as we sat around the fire during the hunt camp. The three of us would get started telling stories to visitors to the camp of things we did as kids. Mom and Dad would just listen until the story was through, then look at the teller of the tale and ask,
“You mean THAT’S how those dimples got into the baseboard? I’ve been wondering about that for forty years.”
They did confess that they learned more about us, from us, just by listening to the stories we told. The hunt camp was a bonding experience for all of us. It is true, hunt camp was mostly an all-male thing, but if and when Mom showed up everything changed. The call would go up,
“Lady in camp!”
Empty drink cans, adult beverages and otherwise, were quickly swept off of tables, into garbage bags. Food was stuffed into coolers. Tent flaps were pulled shut to cover unmade beds and clothes spread everywhere inside. It was one of Dad’s rules. A lady in camp is to be treated and respected as well as can possibly be done. In short, she walked on water and don’t you forget it. We didn’t. Long after the key to well behaved children was no longer needed, Mom was treated the same way. And still is by her surviving children.
And really, that’s how it began. As a young family coming up in the late fifties through the sixties, we were comfortably middle class. Mom stayed at home while Dad was off to work every day, for the early part of our lives. Later on, as we grew, Mom got bored at home and went back to work. We had all that we needed and a lot of what we wanted. Even if we may not have always had it as soon as we wanted. It took Mom until 1968 before she ever owned her first brand-new-never-been-owned-by-anyone-before car. So, money wasn’t something we had a lot of. Dad decided that with a tribe like ours going to certain places on vacation was out of the question just due to expense. That’s when he hit on the idea of going camping. Not that Dad was cheap mind you. But camping provided an inexpensive vacation where parents and children are together for the weekend finding things to do to have fun. It was the prefect answer. Three very active boys being given a forest to play in and a lake to swim in to their hearts content for the entire weekend. We loved it. Dad began to teach us things. How do you start a fire with just one match? How do you keep the fire alive in a rain storm? What is the best way to pitch a tent when you know it is going to rain during the night? How do you track an animal? Do you know how to find wood that will ignite and burn easily on a wet day? On and on the lessons went. Some of them turned into games we played over and over again.
One such game went by two names. The first was ‘sneak attack’ while the second was ‘Indian attack’. It was great for three young men who were each out to prove they were better than their brothers. The game was simple enough. Each of us was given a piece of paper with our name written on it. Without the benefit of flashlights, we were sent into the night. One person would remain in camp and was free to move about. His limit of movement was the ring of light made by the camp-fire. He also had a flashlight. The people outside of camp would now use the darkness and shadows to try to creep far enough into camp to place their paper in plain sight in the firelight, then sneak back out again without getting caught. The person in the camp would be moving around and watching for the others. If he thought he saw someone, he shown his light on them and called them by name. If he was right, the person who was ‘caught’ would have to give up. If the watcher was wrong, he had to turn off the light, close his eyes and count to ten loudly. Sweeping the area with the light was not allowed.
This simple game taught us. It taught us how light in a dark environment can affect how much and how well you see in the darkness. From both sides of the fire. For example, if you are trying to get into camp, don’t look right at the fire. The light from it will ruin your natural night vision for several minutes after that. If you are inside the camp looking out, don’t look at the fire for the same reason. As the watcher you need to be able to look into those shadows and see if anything is moving around. You don’t need to identify it yet, just notice movement in the night shadows. Then use the light to ID the target.
The game taught us the importance of sound during movement. A simple and fun game to prove the importance of sound, especially at night, is go to a quiet place, all alone. Then, throw a rock a short distance from you and listen to the amount of noise it makes. Go to the same place in the day-time and repeat the process. While the rock makes just as much noise both times, because of fewer distractions you hear more at night. Also, there is truth in the saying that as your body loses one sense, the other heighten to make up for it. When you can’t see as much, your sense of hearing tries to compensate. It was things like this that taught us how to move quietly through the woods during hunting season. One of my fondest memories of my father I share with one of my brothers. We were at the fire in camp telling lies about the mornings hunt, and discussing things that had happened to us that morning. It was then that Dad pointed at one of my brothers and myself and said,
“Those two, move through the woods like a whisper.”
Well, Dad is the one who taught us how to move quietly. He learned the importance of that during his time in the Korean War. What he said about us was probably thirty years ago, and my head still hasn’t returned to its proper size.
But that’s really where hunt camp began. Just the family going on vacation in the woods and learning about outdoorsmanship. Learning how to not only swim, but also about rescue. When Mom decided the house wasn’t enough, she took the training and the classes, and became a certified Red Cross Lifesaver/Instructor. Before I was thirteen, I had already earned a number of swimming badges, but when I became thirteen or fourteen, one of my badge qualifications was to swim a mile. You were allowed to rest from time to time by floating on your back, but at no time were you allowed to touch bottom. To do so was instant failure of the test. I passed it on the first try. Even now, all these years later, I can still pretty much swim like a fish. But, you know, all the training in the world is useless if when an emergency happens, you panic.
I said that Mom had become a Lifesaver/Instructor. Dad never bothered with that. He learned to swim as a kid and could out swim Mom any day of the week. But he did learn a few of the lifesaving techniques from her. So, one time we were camping a place where there was a dock which led out to the edge of a large natural spring. I guess by this time I was ten or eleven. It was in the fall, but a nice evening. That’s what made it seem strange to me when our parents insisted that we all dress warmly, with shoes and socks, when we went for an evening walk down to the spring. What made it even more odd was the fact that they were both dressed in bathing suits. But it’s Mom and Dad. Do what they say. Looking back now, there was another odd thing. None of us boys even thought about bringing warm clothing. So, how did it end up at the camp?
I remember we went for our walk. We watched the squirrels chase one another. Looked at the birds. When we got to the dock, of course the three of us were at the edge looking at the fish below us. I remember suddenly seeing my oldest brother go sailing off the dock and splashing into the water. Fully dressed. I remember thinking, ‘Oh man, is he in trouble.’ I noticed movement to my left and looked over in time to see my mother grab my other brother and throw him into the water to join the first one. By now, I am confused and have no idea of what’s going on. I looked up to see the smiling face of my father as he picked me up and made sure I joined my brothers in the water.
We were all, at Mom and Dad’s instructions, wearing heavy long pants, shoes and socks, heavy jackets, and long-sleeved shirts. I hit the water and all of Mom’s training kicked in. The first thing I did was get out of those shoes. No point in wearing anchors on your feet while trying to swim. The jacket was next. I thought about the pants, but it was only about ten feet to the ladder. I kept them and swam over to climb out. I joined my brothers on the dock as Mom came over with a big smile and dry towels. Dad dove in to retrieve three jackets and six shoes. Once everyone was out of the water, they explained to us what I just said. All the training in the world is useless if when something happens, and you freeze up. They had to know if we could handle ourselves in the water, and there was only one sure way to find out. It was quite the surprise at the time it happened, I must say. And honestly, even back then I could see just how much hard sense that made. It was like they say in the Army.
“Everyone is the prefect soldier, in the barracks. It’s a different thing in the field.”
Last edited:
