My wife, Donna, and I took our three boys to Snowbird, in the mountains of North Carolina, to tent camp for first and only time in the fall of 1974.
I drove our car as far up the mountain as I could, to a place I call “Big Y,” at the juncture of the left and right forks of Juanite Branch. I couldn’t go any further up that old logging road, too many rocks and ruts, so I parked and we walked the rest of the way, about a mile and a half, two miles, loaded like pack mules. We went right back to where Brother Dave, my oldest son, Bo, and I had spent a lovely couple of days camping under a blanket of stars in March 1974.
This weekend wasn’t so lovely. The sky was overcast, threatening rain. It was cold, too. A lot like Donna’s temperament that day. And both were about to get a lot worse.
We didn’t have any real camping gear, just stuff we had around the house. A four-year-old pup tent that Bo got for Christmas when he was six, a tent, we were about to discover, that leaked. Blankets, no sleeping bags. A cot. An iron skillet. A folding chair, the kind you lay out on at the beach. And, of course, no backpacks.
It began to drizzle as Bo, 10, and Mark, 8, and I set up the tent. Donna got inside right away, out of the rain, and laid down. Jack, who is mentally handicapped and was still in diapers, laid beside her.
The tent leaked on her. So did Jack.
I was anxious to get a fire going. Maybe we could toast some marshmallows. Lift everyone’s spirits. Besides, it was getting colder.
The boys and I quickly rounded up some firewood, dead tree limbs. But when time came to start the fire, I couldn’t. I had forgotten to bring matches.
Now that’s a problem!
Thank goodness, it was a problem I could fix. There were probably some matches in the car somewhere and it was only three, four miles down there and back. It was just a question of doing what had to be done.
I left Bo, our 10-year-old son, there to guard Donna and Jack while Mark and I walked back down the mountain to the car to get some matches.
Part 2
There were no matches in the car and I looked everywhere, carefully.
So I made a torch. I wrapped an old shirt I found in the trunk around a stick, tied it snugly, and soaked it in oil. The cars we drove in those days all burned a lot of oil so we always had a couple of quarts in the trunk.
My plan: light the torch with the car’s cigarette lighter, jog back up the mountain to our camp, and light the camp fire.
But the car’s cigarette lighter wouldn’t light the torch. I know that’s hard to believe, that a piece of metal glowing red hot wouldn’t light cloth soaked in oil, but it wouldn’t.
I needed a new plan. I needed gasoline.
I found a string, dipped it into the gas tank, squeezed out the excess gas, and tried to light the string with the car’s cigarette lighter. It wouldn’t light either.
I was really ticked off at this point, and even more determined. One way or another I was going to get a flame.
I dipped the string back in the gas tank, soaked it, pulled it out, and squeezed a drop of gas onto that red hot lighter. There was no big flame, no small flame, no nothing. Just a sizzling sound as the gas cooled off the glowing lighter, as if I had poured water on it.
And then I prayed for matches.
And when I finished praying I look in the glove compartment again and, lo and behold, there was pack of matches, in plain sight.
[No, I can’t explain it. But I’m telling you, I’m not making this up.]
Mark and I hustled back up the mountain and lit the fire. Good thing too. It was nearly dark when we got there and starting to rain harder.
Part 3
I had already taken off my poncho and thrown it across the tent to keep the rain from leaking on Donna and Jack. I was getting wet but the good thing about that is you can’t get but so wet.
Someone had left some plastic, draped over a stick frame at the camp site, and that helped some. You couldn’t stand under it and breath at the same time because the sides came down a foot or two and trapped the smoke from the fire. But the boys could squat down and stay reasonably dry or they could lay down on the rain soaked ground and make the best of it.
I stood in the rain, feeding the fire all night, keeping it going.
Donna lay on the cot with Jack praying for the rain to stop. Eventually her prayers were answered and it began snowing.
For most of the night Donna and I passed a watch back and forth, checking and rechecking the time.
The boys caught a little shut eye and I finally went to sleep myself, standing with my back to the fire. I woke up when I realized I was on fire, the flames coming up one leg of my pants. I swatted it out. I was wearing cowboy boots so it didn’t burn off much skin, a piece about the size of a silver dollar on my calf, above the top of my boots. I wanted to see how bad I was burned but the cheap flashlight I brought had quit working.
It was a long night but a short morning.
We had not eaten supper on the mountain and we didn’t eat breakfast either. When it was gray light, barely light enough to see, Donna came out of that tent with her mind made up.
“Jack and I are going to the car,” she said, and without another word she took him by the hand and headed down the hill.
I could see that that woman’s mind was made up. We followed her. We had been run off the mountain.
Postscript: Santa Claus brought me, Bo, and Mark zero degree sleeping bags for Christmas — Donna said she was done with camping on the mountain. We’ve never been run off again.
Coming Monday: Foot In Mouth