Things that go bump, or maybe not, in the Night
Summer and camping went together in my family. In fact, camping was the only kind of summer
vacation I ever knew in my childhood. If
you would have asked any of us at the time I am pretty sure that everyone would
say that they enjoyed our excursions, but only three of us ever took our own
families camping.
Camping during the daytime is a matter of what fun
thing do you want to do now? Swimming,
fishing, hiking or just plain relaxing are just a few pleasurable ways to spend
the day. I never heard any of my
siblings growing up, or even my own children complain about camping in the
daylight. Even the chores of pumping
water and gathering firewood while perhaps not fun, were part of the experience
and they brought a certain sense of accomplishment. The challenges of camping
creep up, literally, when the sun goes down.
We always camped in the National Forest campgrounds
where there was plenty of space in between campsites and there was no
electricity. That meant that lighting
was limited to campfires, flashlights and lanterns, and in turn meant that the
dark darkness of night enveloped about 99 percent of everything. The other reality of camping is that night
lasts twice as long as daytime. Of
course, everyone knew that the darkness itself was not the problem; the real
and imagined threat were the creatures, real and mythical, that prowled about
just beyond the reach of the flashlight beam.
Personally, I was never concerned about any serious
danger. I knew that the two animals most
likely to be encountered in the night were racoons and skunks. Racoons were usually shy enough to wait for
the lantern to be turned down before coming into the campsite. Because of racoons and their uncanny ability
to quickly open any type of cooler or container we had to stow anything edible
as well as the garbage in the locked vehicles for the night. That usually meant the racoons came into
camp, checked it out and quickly discovered slim pickings and so they moved on
to other campsites.
Skunks were a different matter. Skunks are relatively arrogant creatures who
assume correctly that people are afraid of them. That meant that they didn’t always wait until
lights out to make an appearance. The
key is to remain calm, move slowly or not at all, and let the skunk go about
his way when he is good and ready. I
recall though one evening when our group of experienced campers pretty much
failed the test of how to deal with a curious skunk.
It was early in our marriage before we had children of
our own, and we had gone camping with my sister Sandy, her husband Ron, their
three children and two nieces borrowed from my brother Gary. We joined them at their campsite for the
evening campfire. All was going well –
marshmallows were being appropriately toasted, silly songs were being sung, bad
jokes were being laughed at. I was
seated in a lounger which meant that I was only about a foot off of the
ground. At one point I noticed some
movement, looked down and saw that there was a skunk directly beneath me. In feigned calmness I managed to say, “Don’t
panic, but there is a skunk under my chair.
In approximately 1.2 seconds everyone else scrambled from their chairs
and disappeared. The kids all dove into
the tent, my sister and my wife made it to the car and slammed and locked the
doors behind them. That forced my
brother-in-law to hop up on the hood of the car.
All that commotion put the skunk on alert. I think he would have let loose of volley of
ill smelling spray but they have to kind of raise up their tail and back end to
do so, and the lounger didn’t afford him adequate clearance. My reclined position, though previously
comfortable, prevented me from any kind of quick escape. I had been abandoned and left behind as the
designated sacrifice. I didn’t have any
choice but to remain still and hope for the best.
I watched as the skunk moved out from under my chair
and he headed for the picnic table that held all our snacks. While he was very interested he couldn’t
reach, nor could he climb up. My
brother-in-law Ron though, was impatient and decided to throw a piece of
firewood at the skunk to scare it off.
That was not a good idea as the skunk became agitated. He didn’t spray, but you could tell that he
was giving it serious consideration. I
suggested to Ron, somewhat emphatically, against tossing any more
firewood. Eventually the uninvited guest
did move off and everyone came out of hiding.
That did kind of kill the mood though, so everything
got packed up for the evening. We headed
down the road, to the restrooms with flashlights scanning the roadside bushes
for any sign of our furry striped companion.
If you want to know the effect that a skunk encounter can have on
previously normal-appearing souls, I offer you the scene of two grown women and
three girls all somehow simultaneously fitting into a one-stall outhouse. None of them had any intention of waiting in
the dark for their turn. I chuckled at
them until it occurred to me that Ron and both of his boys had done the
same. I was alone there in the dark –
once more the designated sacrificial lamb.
But I maintained my calmness, I chuckled quietly to myself. But there in the dark I began to sense that I
was not alone. I took courage in the
fact that daylight was only about forty hours away!
“My soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning,
more than those who watch for the morning.” Psalm 130:6
His Peace,
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