CAMPING

I am not a camper.  Ken once told a friend, “Her idea of roughing it is having to walk across the street from the motel to eat breakfast.”  (Yes, there was a long-ago time when hotels did not have restaurants or complimentary breakfasts.)

Betty Walden and I were recently reminiscing about a camp out in 1958.  We were naïve.  We actually thought we would get a good night’s sleep.  We laughed about being shocked that the girls went out in their sheer baby doll pajamas to meet boys.  We agreed if we had done that our mothers would have sent us to a convent until we were eighteen.

This is a repeat post of that night.

CLUELESS                            Posted March 25, 2015

Ken and I were both teaching in Fort Worth at Rosemont Junior High (now Middle School) during the 1957-58 school year.  One of my assignments was co-sponsor of

Y Teens, a girls club under the guidance of the YWCA.  I helped a veteran teacher who had sponsored the group for several years.  I did whatever she told me.  This worked well for both of us.

The club had an annual overnight campout at Camp Carter located on the Trinity River.  There had been heavy rains earlier and parts of the river had flooded.  As the date for the campout neared, the water receded.  A protective wire was placed along the sides of a swinging bridge we would use.  The area was declared safe for camping.

The sponsor, Mrs. B., had difficulty recruiting parents to help chaperone.  We asked Ken and our good friends, Betty and Earl Walden, to help chaperone.  Earl was a fellow faculty member.  Betty would stay in a cabin with me.  Earl and Ken would fish.  The men would be nearby in case of an emergency.

The first hint of trouble came when Mrs. B. began to get sick.  She forged ahead assuming everything would go smoothly.  She would rest and give me directions.  I had no clue what was in store other than sleeping on a cot with a cabin full of excited 9^th -grade girls.

We arrived at the camp after school on a Friday and settled into the cabins.  All of the evening activities went well.  There was plenty of food and entertainment around the campfire.  Everyone had a good time.  Sometime near midnight, we got the girls into the cabins.  I thought we were secure until morning.  Mrs. B was feeling increasingly worse.  She took some meds, went to the back of the cabin, and went to sleep.  Betty and I, with their Weimaraner, Duchess, relaxed on cots near the front and only door.  The girls talked, sang, and had a good time.

Mrs. B failed to tell us to keep a count of the girls.  I began to miss some faces.  I checked the bathroom.  It was empty.  Some of the girls were trying to hide guilty, sideways looks at me.  I did not pick up on that clue.  We were missing some girls.  The only way out without passing Betty and I was through the bathroom window.  Betty and I had grown up as compliant teenagers.  That any girl would sneak out had not occurred to us.  Even though there were no cell phones or any way to communicate, we soon found out their boyfriends knew where they were.  It was apparent plans had been made.

We were shocked to find the girls outside in their cute, little, sheer baby doll pajamas.  They were sauntering toward the entrance.  Oh my!  Betty and I certainly would never have let a boy see us in our night clothes.  Couldn’t these girls have a least put on a robe?  I took a deep breath, told them to go back inside and stay or I might call the police.  A little voice said, “Oh, please don’t do that.  My Dad is a policeman.”  Good, maybe our problems were solved.

Betty and I got the girls back inside.  We realized we needed to be more observant and keep a better count of our charges.  The dog was the only one relaxed.

We had just gotten settled again where there was a tap and the door opened.  A mother with girls in another cabin had gone outside for some fresh air.  She looked across the river toward the entrance.  There were lights on that side and she saw cars arriving.  As she watched, boys began getting out of the cars.

I had no clue what to do.  Mrs. B. was asleep.  We had no idea where Ken and Earl were fishing.  The mother told me not to worry.  She would handle the situation.  I was relieved to let her take charge.  She had a large flashlight which was turned off.  She told me to follow quietly and do whatever she did.  I dutifully followed behind her.  We could see the boys start across the swinging bridge Indian style, one behind the other. They were walking on tiptoe not making a sound.  The mother stopped close to the bride, crouched down beside the path and motioned me to do likewise.  The boys could not see us.  She waited until the leader was within about 5 feet of us.  She jumped up with the flashlight at his face and clicked it on.  A few expletives flew and the boys jumped straight up.  She definitely had their attention.  She calmly and authoritatively told them they had proven that they could get into the camp without being caught.  She told them to go out the same way or there would be trouble.  They hung their heads, humbly retreated the way they had come, got into their cars and left.

After that, Betty and I decided we needed to be outside the cabin on the little porch.  We knew if we dozed inside, girls might slip past us.  The night had gotten cold.  Duchess was a big, warm dog.  We put her between us and scooted up against her. When the side next to the dog got warm, we turned and warmed our other side.

No fishing was going on for the guys.  The perimeter of the camp had a 6-foot fence topped with barbed wire.  Land outside the camp was rugged.  That did not keep boys from scaling the fence and getting in.  Earl and Ken patrolled the perimeter all night chasing boys back over the fence.  This went on until near daylight.  They finally began to fish when they felt there were no more intruders.  They caught a few fish.  They were so tired they did not want to clean them.  They gave them to Mrs. B.