In the summer of 1965 my aunt Vesti found out that a nearby scout troop was going on week long campout and she arranged for me to go along. It turned out to be one of the most memorable experiences of my life.
There was a bit of weirdness beforehand: Dad showed up at Vesti's house (out of the blue) right before I left on the trip. He wanted to see his kids and discuss the whole divorce thing with mom... But I'd been looking forward to that camping trip for weeks and there was no way I wasn't going :-) So I went and avoided most of the fireworks...
The trip started out by train. It was just the scouts - the 2 scoutmasters took their own vehicles. One of them also brought his girlfriend. I think the justification was to provide a "motherly presence". Umm - she was a bit young for that.... But she was very sweet and had this "natural outdoorsy blond" vibe going on ... OK - she was hot - so none of the scouts minded :-) And that was just one of the many things that would be verboten in American scouting...
Getting to the camp site was rather involved. I don't remember all the details but we ended up in hay wagon going down a winding road through the woods. The campsite was in a field right by the "Our" river (it forms the border with Luxembourg). For the curious - we were just across the river about a quarter mile northeast of Tintesmuhle, Luxembourg. (I can't believe how easily I found the place on Google maps after 45 years). And for the really curious, the GPS coordinates of my tent were roughly 50°05'43"N 6°07'54"E... (You can cut and paste that in Google - it'll find it.)
We got everything unloaded - the scoutmasters were already there and had set up a WWII surplus mess tent big enough for the whole troop. And we were setting up our patrol tents when we had the first casualty - my patrol leader was hammering in a tent peg right next to me using the butt end of his hand axe when he suddenly stopped... I looked over and he was kneeling there with this blank look on his face. I started to ask him what was wrong - then the blood started running down his forehead, his eyes rolled back - and he fell over... He "came to" a few seconds later but the gash (from his axe) required medical attention. The scoutmaster (the one with the girlfriend) bandaged him up, put him on the back of his BMW motorcycle and hauled him out to the nearest town. The kid came back a few hours later with 7 stitches in his scalp...
The next interesting thing was setting up the "facilities". There was a really steep forested hillside just east of the campsite. I guess they figured that rather than digging a deep pit it would be easier to just cut a hollow into the hillside - so that's what they did. There were a couple of trees 3 feet apart up the hill from the "hollow". They lashed a tree branch knee high horizontally between the trees, added a "backrest" rope (also horizontally between the trees), and hung a tarp behind it. So here's how it worked:
You sat down on the branch, positioned the "backrest" rope behind you and slid backwards until your weight was supported by the rope and your butt was hanging out over the 15 foot drop. Then you prayed nothing went wrong as you did your "business". It was somewhat "disconcerting" :-)
The following day we built an "unauthorized" international bridge across the "Our" river by the campsite. The purpose was quick access to the store in Tintesmuhle. The German side of the river was steep and heavily wooded and it took forever to get to the "official" bridge.
So the scoutmasters cut down a number of tall slender trees on the Luxembourg side - probably also unauthorized :-) We built three "A-frame" supports in the river using larger trees. They were held straight with ropes tethered on both banks. The deck was made from smaller trees (lashed together with ropes). We even added "international border crossing" signs on both sides...
We had to take a break during construction when the "non-girlfriend" scoutmaster stepped on a wasp nest and got stung about 30 or 40 times. He wasn't feeling too good and had to be hauled out for medical treatment. But the bridge was finished by the end of the day and the "scoutmaster who brought the girlfriend" tested it by riding his motorcycle across it. Yeah - he was what I'd call a "risk taker" :-)
We spent the next 2 days hiking through Luxembourg. And I think I'll leave that story for another post...
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2 comments:
Those were the days, eh? When there was a true lack of rules, and nobody feared lawsuits. Great stuff, for those of us who survived!
Now that's a camping trip! Sounds amazing...though I'm not sure how I would have felt about the "facilities"...
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