Tenting Memories

I was thinking about recent adventures with our church teens and thought of a camping trip out West. One of our camp sites was Kings Creek Campground in Utah, located was near the town of Tropic. As a dry camp, it meant the campsite had no water for showers. The site did have potable water, water for hand washing, and for flushing of the toilets. Our assigned campsite was unusual because it was large and had an amphitheater with bleachers that stepped up from a concrete surrounded fire pit.

By now we were old pros at setting up camp. We had set up our tents and cooked our meals in the dark of night before. This one was easy, because it was still daylight. The girls set up their tent, the guys set up theirs and set up tents for the women chaperones while the women cooked the meal and the men built the campfire.

It was Saturday night, but we had our church service that evening after the meal. There would be no time for it in the morning. Sitting on the bleachers, tall pine trees became the walls of the sanctuary and the ceiling was a dark star studded night sky.

The boys weren’t satisfied with the fire in the fire pit and built another close to the spot where they’d already erected their tent. Somewhere along our drive, they’d bought hot dogs and marshmallows. It was their plan to stay up late and snack on them. They could sleep during the drive in the morning and weren’t concerned that their laughter and noise would bother others, especially those who’d be driving the vans.

Despite several warnings, they kept the fire and laughter going until late or should I say early morning. In the morning when I woke, I talked to Joy another driver. She too was sleepy and tired because of the boys late night antics.

The boys were still asleep and we decided to lower the center frame of their tent, dropping its roof to a point where the guys couldn’t stand erect when they finally awoke. Unwittingly, we’d set into motion a civil war between the boys and girls. The boys blamed the girls and thus began a tit for tat of locked tent zippers, powdered sleeping bags, and shaving cream bombs.

But back to the sights of the campsite that morning, Apparently Pastor Johnston had gotten cold during the night and moved his sleeping bag closer to the fire pit. His bag was covered in gray flakes of wood ash. It looked as though it had snowed dingy snow during the night covering him and his sleeping bag.

Wearing Baggy Pants

Bagging pants that sag below a person’s waistline and sometimes even beneath his butt cheeks weren’t brought into vogue by prisoners and wanna-be thugs of recent years. That really occurred quite a few years ago. Let me share a few examples. While visiting my grandparents Ray and Becky Miner’s house, my father Carl Beck just happened to walk by the bottom of the staircase as Gram was walking upstairs. Ceilings in the old farmhouse were twelve feet high and the stairway was long and lined by a dark oak banister. Gram’s arthritic knees and feet made the progress upstairs slow, holding tightly to the banister. Dad paused as he saw something unusual. Apparently Gram had forgotten to raise her underwear from half mast while using the bathroom and part of the garment was visible dangling out from under the hem of her house dress.

I’m not sure whether Dad was actually being gentlemanly or whether he was too embarrassed and afraid to say something to Gram, but he found my mom Sybil Miner Beck and advised her of Gram’s problem. Mom went upstairs to help correct the problem.

My sister Kathy picked up the nickname Droopy Drawers. Mom took a photo of her wearing only her cotton underwear as she rummaged through the lower dresser drawer where Mom kept her purses. The underwear weren’t really baggy, but they looked as though they drooped in the seat.

Another memory of baggy underwear I have, I know I’ve shared before. When my wife Cindy and I were first married, we had to count our pennies and make each dollar count. One day she walked past me as I sat in the living room and the underwear she was wearing had the elastic separating from the panty’s cotton material. It gave those panties the lopsided appearance of a person who’s had a stroke, where the one side of the person’s face droops down. I said, “Surely we have enough money to buy some more underwear.

She replied, “I can still wear them. They’re good enough for everyday.”

As she strolled by me the next time, I snatched them, separating the elastic and panties even more and I said, “Now they’re not.” I knew that Cindy hated to repair clothing and this was beyond using her usual bevy of safety pins.

She stopped, turned and said, “You tore them, now you’ll have to buy me new ones.” And I did. Every year for Christmas, Cindy was assured of one gift…new underwear.

 

 

Worth the Effort

Saturday, Mt. Zion Community Church held a winter retreat for teens. It was open to all local teens. Six hours of food, games, singing, and good Christian messages, butut let me back up. There had to be preparation for this exciting event. The church family began to plan months ahead.

Our youth Pastor handled the games and kept a list of teens that would need a ride. Several of the adult mentors made decorations. I got involved when one of them asked me to help decorate the church, gym, and community hall with the scenery. I had a stash of cardboard in my basement left over from a furniture delivery and the task of making a forest of trees began. Twenty-two cardboard pine trees later, they were cut, painted, and dried waiting to be hauled off and placed throughout the church.

Other workers planned the snacks and a meal. Teenagers and food are inseparable. The food was filling and delicious, and there was plenty to eat. The food was an oasis amid the games and messages.

Several of church members gathered in the fellowship hall and began decorating and converting it into an indoor winter wonderland. Pale blue netting, snowflakes, silver stars, and a menagerie of animals were set out to bring the transform the buildings. A forest of trees lined walls and topped lunch tables as centerpieces. The glitter is still clinging to my shirt and pants. I even noticed a flake or two in the mirror as I shaved getting ready for church Sunday morning. I may have a sparkling in my eye while listening to the sermon.

Twelve teens were signed in. That made enough for three teams of four. Each team was assigned a name like Blizzard or Frosty. Kids played games like a dog sled run where one teen was the blindfolded sled dog and one rode a creeper directing them through a maze of traffic cones all the while being pelted with dodge ball “snow balls.” There was also a tandem 2 x4 ski race and several other skits and games.

The youth pastor had periods of rest and gave the Gospel message, allowed snack breaks, and there was even some free time before the meal of soup, sandwiches of Italian beef or BBQ chicken, ice cream and chocolate cookies or brownies.

Before the end of the retreat one teen accepted Christ as Savior, one teen gained assurance of salvation, and several others made deeper commitments to following Christ. The knowledge that these teens gained a closer walk with God made the effort worthwhile.

We kept the winter wonderland scene intact for our Sunday services so everyone watching on live stream could see the different scenery behind the pulpit.

Houses on the Farm

As I was clearing my driveway of snow…again, a cold wind from the southeast managed to slip beneath my coat and find bare flesh at my middle the bottom of my shirt meets the top of my pants. It pulled me back to a time when using the outhouse in the winter was something I dreaded. Not only was the trip to that old weathered, two-seated shanty dangerous going down a series of cement stairs, it was the lack of a handrail when the steps were covered in snow or ice that doubled the threat of a fall.

The outhouse was only one of the many houses loated on my grandparents Ray and Becky Miner’s farm. As with most farms the main buildings were the barn and farmhouse. Barns came in all shapes and sizes with a variety of colors. Farmhouses were similar, two-storied with four rooms downstairs and four up. Their house had a front and back porch that ran the length of the house. Bedrooms claimed the upstairs with kitchen, dining room, sitting room, and a parlor downstairs that perched over a full basement where the huge beast of a coal furnace lurked.

Another necessary farm house was mentioned at the beginning of this article, the outhouse. I’ve addressed the necessity and the disadvantages of this small building summer and winter times in previous blogs.

There was also the hen house or chicken coop, where farmers kept their chickens. The first reason was for their egg laying capacity. Eggs were often sold to supplement the farmer’s wife’s ability to feed and clothe the family. When they grew old they were eaten, fried, in potpies, or made into sandwich spread.

The smoke house was a loosely sealed building where smoke from smoldering fires could be introduced to cure hams, bacon, and sometimes sausage. It often was used as a tool repository for the rest of the year.

Although my grandparents never had a summer house, many farms had one to keep the heat out of the kitchen when meals were prepared keeping the main house cooler during the hot summer months. My grandparents did have a spring house, not as in the season, but to cover and protect the water for the farm. The cool flowing water from some spring houses was used to keep milk and foods from spoiling.

Most farms had other outbuildings, but they weren’t called houses. For instance, the pig pen or sty, a machinery or tool shed, and a corncrib are but a few.

 

Burn Baby Burn

Continuing the memory of my last post of visiting Aunt Helen and Uncle Jake Stahl as a teenaged kid and my beach memory of the time when Florida wasn’t the Mecca for tourists flocking to Disney World like lemmings to the sea. Orlando wasn’t the host to a vacation resort. Its amusement park wasn’t thought of. But I believe California Disneyland was in place at that time. I remember it was advertised on television Sunday evenings.

My parents Carl and Sybil Miner Beck decided to visit Jake and Helen. It was the first time seeing them since they’d moved to Florida. It was also the first time I’d seen an ocean. After the initial shock of seeing bikini clad women strolling along Daytona Beach, we climbed out of the car and spread towels to claim our spots. The sounds of the Atlantic Ocean were all new to me. I’d never heard the rushing waves, or the cries of gulls flying overhead. Salty smells of ocean and hot sand assaulted my nostrils with their different refreshing smells. Clouds scudded across the sky the sun playing peek-a-boo. It slowly became overcast where the sun could only peer through a veil of haziness.

Because I have sandy hair and pale skin I quickly exceeded my dose of vitamin D. My back bore the brunt of the sun’s assault. I was soon redder than a lobster and my back felt as though I’d been in the boiling water with him.

The Stahl’s air conditioning was wonderful, though I occasionally felt chilled and would shiver. Jake had grilled his famous steaks and was upset when I refused to eat one. I nibbled on a piece of celery and a few carrots. The wonderful aroma of the meat nauseated me, feeling sick from the sunburn. I found later that I had “sun poisoning.”

On the return ride from vacation, I rode in the front seat with a pillow at the base of my spine where I could sit forward without my painful, blistered back coming in contact with the seat. Mom got relegated to the back seat riding the hump where the exhaust pipe ran beneath the car between Kathy and Ken. It wasn’t an enviable place to be.

Without the interstate roadways, Dad drove twenty-one hours from Orlando to Breezewood, Pennsylvnia. At Breezewood, he decided he was tired and allowed Mom to drive. No sooner had he taken Mom’s seat in the back than he complained about how hot it was. Mom had endured it for 21 hours, so she had no pity and she sped along the Turnpike. Dad’s rushed return trip earned him the nickname Zoom-zoom.