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Show I like the kid, but why must we camp? By MARC HADDOCK The editor is on vacation, so this is a repeat of one of his most popular columns. We loaded our gear in the back of the car, made sure we were dressed for the occasion as grubby as possible and headed for the canyon. can-yon. .. It was the annual father's and son's outing, and for the first time, my son and I were heading for the hills. .. We hadn't gone before because I had insisted I would not sleep out with anybody who might wet the bed, er, sleeping bag. It had been my only excuse, until now. .. Now I could see no way out. I was very sneaky when it came to this fathers-and-sons business. I had three daughters before any boys came along. Not that I h ave anything against boys. In fact, I think they are great. But a certain segment of our society equates boys and camping. And while I can put up with the boy part of the deal with no reservations, reserva-tions, camping is another matter. I put up with camping with several reservations preferably one at the nearest Holiday Inn. Oh, I know, there is supposed to be something magical about sleeping sleep-ing out under the stars, getting back to nature, retreating from society to a place where men are men and women are back home, where you can spit and cuss without with-out having to look around to see who will see you or hear you, where relief is just a tree away. But I have a hard time remembering remem-bering one camping experience that wasn't uncomfortable, if not painful. pain-ful. My early scouting days were counter-productive. I remember camping out up Home Canyon, my first overnighter, during dur-ing a rain storm. Somebody used a flare to light the morning fire so it would dry out the wood enough to burn. My pants were frozen stiff. I times. (Let's face it. Most 12-year-old boys do awful things to food when they get it near a fire.) I avoided most of the classes, which taught me things I didn't want to know, with the exception of the rifle range, where I pretended the target was the scout leader who had talked me into this peculiar form of self-imposed torture and . fired my way to a Marksman ranking. rank-ing. Going home was the best thing that happened in any camping trip ' but after scout camp it was the greatest moment of my life. (Until I went home the next year. I didn't know how they talked me into doing that twice.) .. We arrived at Mutual Dell, the site of our father's and son's outing, to find something marvelous. The improvements at the Dell made last year are impressive -- with family camps and wilderness camps. .. But the lodge looked wonderful, with enough indoor bunks to handle all of us twice over. .. We ate dinner at real tables, and cooked our hamburgers on charcoal char-coal grills not as sophisticated as an electric or gas range, but better than an open fire by a long shot. .. The only problem came when both my son and I wanted the third hamburger. (My 6-year-old eats more than I do on most occasions). But I had solved that by putting all the things Dad likes on the burger, rendering the meat inedible for the more refined tastes of Seth, my son. .. When I put him to bed that night in the top bunk next to his best friend, Darren, I felt like this particular par-ticular outing was going to be more positive than my first. I've had to camp out plenty, but I've never liked it except for the weekend Scott, Brent and I spent at Joe's Gap just getting away from everybody. At 15, it was good to get away where you could cuss and spit and do all that other stuff. And there were no adults to mess things up. Just us. After that, I pretty well stayed out of a sleeping bag until some misguided soul asked me to be a scoutmaster, and I, an even more misguided soul, said yes. Then it was more sleepless nights and too much food cooked by 12-year-old boys who had been allowed too close to an open fire. I would come home hungry and tired, just as I did when I was 12, but now my back would hurt as well. Age and camping don't mix. After five years of Scouting, I was given my marching orders, sent packing, so to speak. I vowed I would never spend another night on the ground unless a nuclear holocaust destroyed civilization as we know it and I had no choice or I had to go on a father's and son's outing, whichever came first. The night passed quite peacefully. peace-fully. Only Darren and his dad shared our room. All the noisy teenagers teen-agers were somewhere else - wherever wher-ever the radio was blaring away. .. Breakfast was indoors, and was cooked by adults who knew how to handle a spatula. .. The older kids and their dads were playing Softball, so Seth and Darren and I went on a hike, with the boys leading the way as I followed fol-lowed and made grownup suggestions sugges-tions which they cheerfully ignored. .. We made friends with some squirrels. .. We hunted for dead branches to make hiking staffs. .. We climbed to the top of the mountain (at least it looked like the top to a couple of 6 year olds) and then explored our way back again. .. And on the way home Seth drank a whole can of pop (it was a good thing he hadn't done that just before be-fore going to bed) and we looked for tree tunnels in American Fork Canyon and talked about what a good time we'd had. .. When we got home I decided I still hate camping, but this father's and son's stuff, that's all right. couldn't find my socks. I had been cold all night only to wake up to cold clothes and a flare instead of a fire. And there was nothing to do except camp - pitch a tent, go to sleep, get up too early, eat an awful breakfast, and then go home to comfort, real food and a bed that didn't feel like it had been made out of boulders. Going home was great, but the camping was no fun. That first experience set the tone for most future camping expeditions. expedi-tions. The grownups made us spend the night in Paris Canyon, near Minnetonka Cave, at Bloomington Lake all were less than satisfactory. satisfac-tory. Scout camp was the worst -- a whole week on the rocks, under the stars, with no sleep and no fun. I hid out during the day to avoid the swimming classes. (Okay, so I was a wimp. But I still had not mastered the basic techniques of swimming - I couldn't even dog paddle. And that high mountain lake at Camp Little Lemhi was cold enough to give a polar bear second thoughts.) I made myself scarce during meal |