Glocked and Loaded

I was talking with a friend at work last week and he was telling me about his adventures with the Boy Scouts. One of his girlfriend’s boys is in Scouts, and he’s been brought into the leadership fold. He was talking about camping, and my mind wandered back to the first time I went camping with my dad.

You’ll have to excuse me as I’m not the greatest story teller.

I don’t remember how old I was, it would have been in the 70s, though.

We camped at Branched Oak Lake, which is outside Lincoln, Nebraska, near a town called Malcolm. Incidentally, my dad was born and grew up on the land that is now under the lake. It was a village called Crounse. His dad farmed some land there. I sort of remember the site where we camped. If I went back out there I could probably find it. It was near the lake, but not a regular campsite.

My dad had an old green, canvas tent that we set up. It was an A-frame type tent, and there were three or four poles that you put together to support the front and back. The flaps were the kind you tie together with little canvas tabs that were sewn on.

We cooked pork steaks for dinner that night. I remember they tasted pretty darn good. We probably had potatoes with them, but I don’t remember.

The next morning we walked down to the lake. It was quite and the lake was calm. It probably looked like glass. It’s pretty cool to see a large body of water that is still. I remember times when I was in the Marines and at sea aboard the Peleliu that the Pacific Ocean was like that.

For breakfast that morning we cooked bacon and eggs. They tasted great. Some things just taste better when cooked in the great outdoors.

I wish I could remember more detail, but it’s mostly just feelings at this point. I don’t remember if we had a campfire or used a camp stove, or maybe both. I don’t know if we talked much. We probably did. I imagine I spent some time looking at the sky. Away from the city lights, the stars shine brighter, are more plentiful and you can catch glimpses of the streaks of stars that give the Milky Way its name.