Two city kids, a Jew and an Italian, go camping in the woods. It may sound like the opening of a joke, but it was the beginning of new great memory. I was eight years old when my father showed up in front of our Oceanside, New York brownstone dragging what resembled a very large grilled cheese in tow. The square object turned out to be a Colman pop-up camper. It looked like a sandwich when closed and a tent on wheels when opened. Hooked up to our canary-yellow Pacer and parked along the street, it made for an awesome site.
My father was a closet woodsman. While other Jewish dads from New York planed trips to FLA, my father was dreaming of a campout at the KOA. Being first time campers, my mother thought it would be best to do a mock campout in our driveway. I watched in utter amazement as my father turned the block on wheels into the most spectacular tent. It had pull down beds, a sink, and a table. "Hey Dad, where's the bathroom?" I asked. "In the woods," he said with smile. That night Mom brought out dinner to the camper where dad and I ate. We looked over books he checked out from the library about animal tracks and then I fell asleep in the camper, under the Long Island sky. In the middle of night I awoke and had to go to the bathroom. Dad walked me in the house and he decided we broke in the sandwich long enough. Dad tucked me into my own bed.
The following weekend our family was off to the woods for real. My best friend Dennis Carletta was allowed to come with us on the trip. I was glad because not only was he was my best friend, but his mom had packed enough cannolis to last a month…just in case we got lost in the woods. We arrived at the KOA around lunchtime. While Mom broke out the PB&J's, us boys popped up the camper, and if that's all we did it would have been fine with us. "Dennis look, a lake." We spent the afternoon looking for snakes, bugs, salamanders, and… "Seth, hurry…and bring the net!" Dennis had come upon the largest bullfrog we had ever seen. I can clearly remember holding it way above my head like a trophy, feeling the massive weight while its meaty legs dangled underneath. Dad took us down a trail. The grass stood above our heads and Dennis and I imagined lions and tigers stalking us from the brush. To our surprise we spotted a fox darting past the trail and scat that belong to either a big rabbit or small deer. Yes, sir. We were far from the city and loving it! That day felt like it lasted for weeks. We climbed trees, skimmed rocks, roasted marshmallow over a camp fire we built, and ate baked beans from a can. The only trace of the city we left behind was the residual crumbs of Italian cannolis right over our lips.
That night, after we retold stories of the lions we spotted, drank hot chocolate, and told monster stories, we all fell asleep. It wasn't until hours later when I heard the noise outside our camper. "Dad, I think there's a bear outside," I whispered. "Well it's a good thing we're inside," my father said. What my father didn't know was that I had to go to the bathroom. The bathroom was "in the woods" we both recalled. My father grabbed a flashlight and I closely followed him out of the Colman with my Swiss Army knife, blade opened on one side and the fork opened on the other for good measure. My father didn't show he was scared but he moved a bit slower and more cautious than usual in the pitch-black night. As we turned toward the back of the camper two glowing eyes attached to a furry body leaped out from behind a garbage can, causing my father to jump back and scream "holy shit!" It was nothing more than a big raccoon that was rummaging though the trash but when we got back to the camper we told things differently.
My mother, little sister, and best friend Dennis listened wide-eyed as Dad and I told them how we surprised a bear and chased it into the woods. Bull frogs, salamanders, lions, tigers, bears, and hearing my father curse. We not only had a great camping trip, we made great memories.
Seth Prezant is the founder and Bugmaster of www.CoolBugStuff.com His award winning web site was created to help promote fascination and education in science using nature’s most abundant creatures…Bugs! Seth is a true EEE (Education & Entertainment Entrepreneur) providing educational and entertaining nature shows for schools, camps, aftercare programs and home school groups all around South Florida. The Bugmaster can be reached @ seth@coolbugstuff.com
You can find many more easy parent/child projects to do together on Seth's website www.coolbugstuff.com.
