The Wit and Wisdom of David Johnson: Any Way You Measure it Camping is an Adventure

I could probably write a book solely devoted to my camping adventures and the crazy, wonderful, amazing, unexpected things that happened.

I’d grown up camping with my family, but it was something brand-new for my wife. However, she became a devotee even when our two daughters were babies.

Tents.

Tents that leaked.

That’s how we started out. Sleeping bags on the ground.

Camping with no electricity, a bathhouse lit by a skylight, and cold showers.

We envied some of our friends who had pop-up campers, the kind you cranked open by hand and plugged in so you could at least have fans running during hot summer nights.

One time, one of them offered to let us borrow their camper for the weekend. We couldn’t have been more excited if we were going to stay in a Holiday Inn.

Do you know what “in-service” means? It refers to: “training intended for those actively engaged in a profession or activity.” School teachers who have been teaching for thirty years have in-service trainings. Employees in factories have regular in-service trainings.

I didn’t need an in-service on how to camp; I’d camped my whole life. But an in-service on how to set up a pop-up camper would have been helpful. I just didn’t realize how helpful.

It all looked so easy when I watched from a distance. Kind of like how mountain climbing or swimming with sharks looks easy when you watch it on television.

Once I got the tongue height adjusted so the camper set level, I slipped the hand crank in place and raised the roof to its full height and slid out a platform over the tongue and another platform on the other side that we would be sleeping on. Next came the canvas sides and ends that had to be stretched and snapped or tied into place.

That took me fifty-nine words to describe but over an hour to actually accomplish.

My shirt was soaked and sweat stung my eyes, but “mission accomplished.”

The July temperature was still in the upper 80s when it was time to go to bed, so I plugged in two plastic box fans and an oscillating fan on the three-foot countertop, pointing them toward the girls in their bed on one end of the camper and on Brenda and me on the other end.

Lights out.

Sleep came quickly to us all as we’d spent the day swimming, walking, and riding Big Wheels and tricycles.

At precisely 2:13 a.m. a blinding bolt of lightning shot through the tree canopy and struck a tree fifty feet from our camper. The explosion of the tree and clap of thunder that followed sounded like a cannon.

All four of us screamed and shot out of bed. I couldn’t see the girls, but I felt them rush past me, crying for their mother. When they landed in bed with her, the tongue of the camper lifted into the air, sloping everything in a forty-five-degree angle, box fans and the oscillating fan banged onto the floor, all of which triggered more screams.

I had no idea why the camper was standing on its end, but I rushed to tilted end and flung myself on girls’ bed.

Like a slow-moving seesaw, the camper leveled itself out.

A deafening deluge ensued outside.

Shouting to be heard, I said to Brenda, “I’ll just sleep over here. Keep the girls with you.”

“What’s wrong with this camper?” she yelled back.

“I don’t know. I’ll figure it out in the morning.”

Of course, I couldn’t go back to sleep with my mind searching for answers to the question about the camper.

Come morning, no one could get out of bed unless we choreographed it to keep the camper level.

But once we did get outside, I slowly walked around the camper, trying to see the problem. Not until I squatted down and looked underneath did I see there were four little legs that were supposed to be unfolded.

See? That’s why the in-service would have been helpful.

Being a man, my next thought was how thankful I was that the fiasco happened at night so no one could see what an idiot I was. It’s all about saving face, right?

After breakfast was cooked on my faithful Coleman stove, the man camping with his family beside us strolled over. (Camper people do lots of strolling and visiting.)

“What about that storm last night?” he said. “That lightning scared us all to death.”

“Same here,” I replied. “It nearly hit our camper.”

“How long you had that camper?” he asked.

“Oh, it’s not ours. We borrowed it.”

“I hear those things can be a little tricky if they’re not set up right.”

I started to agree with him, but I saw a smile flirting around the corners of his mouth. My heart sank.

“You didn’t, did you?” I asked.

“Just as I looked out the window of our R.V. I saw your camper rear up like a stallion. It was the funniest thing I ever saw.”

My face burned with embarrassment.

Shrugging my shoulders and shaking my head, I said, “No one ever told me about those legs.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll never tell.”

I didn’t believe that for one second because another thing camping folks like to do is tell funny tales.

* Taken from The Wit and Wisdom of David Johnson, Volume III: A Harrowing Halloween Tale