Archive for October 26th, 2008

8:45 a.m.

If I could write a book-lenth manuscript on the road in two weeks, on a two day campout I guess I can get pretty close to the longest essay magazines ever run.  I am cold now, which is strange when you consider that I’ve been up for the better part of three hours.  Also, my feet are freezing as a result of having worn no socks on this suitcaseless “vacation.” Back at home I would be playing on my computer and maybe making something like donuts for breakfast, or coffee cake, with the kids.

So .. I am in the truck, because I thought it would be warmer and because I could wrap my feet in a sweatshirt. Now my feet are warming up but my hands are cold, perhaps as a result of touching the computer keys which are freezing, the computer having spent the night outside. My environmentalist streak does not allow me to start up the Suburban and warm myself up with the heater, so I am sitting here and hoping that things will get better in the heat department just on the basis of my body heat and perhaps the sun.  

I tried to get an extra pair of socks from Brand but he said he only had two pairs and one was soaked with dew because he left it out overnight. I hung those socks up on a stick. Hopefully by noon they’ll be dry and I can wear them for the orienteering meet. I’m thinking of driving into Walmart in Decatur and getting a couple of things. Socks, for example. And a toothbrush. The rest I can probably do without. 

I sense that the others in the group think I am a little weird. Of course, that just shows that they’re paying attention. I am a little weird. The strangest thing about the trip to me is that we have almost no interaction with the kids, making me wonder why we’re out here. I look over the troop and determine that considering current management levels the operation could be run with maybe two scoutmasters and one or two Venturers (senior scouts). Then the rest of us could be in the house, enjoying, you know, heat, electricity, a full wardrobe of clothing, assorted shoe choices, running water, all the stuff you come out here and look around at the wilds and suddenly feel desperate for.

Mr. M saw me typing away on my computer and said “I wouldn’t bring my computer. I come out here to get away from that.” Of course, my computer is my escape. 

This is the same dad who told me he lived in California for thirty-three years and he’s grateful to have gotten out. “Like rats, rats in a box,” he said. “It’s no place to live.”

“Everyone I know in California seems to want to get out,” I agree. I tell him my entire family left. I tell him my theory about geography, that geography is destiny and the reason the character of the Texans is tougher is because we have a less generous geography here. You want a party in Texas, you’re going to have to work for it. You want a party in California, you just go to the beach.

He doesn’t look like he agrees with me and I think to myself, he must be one of those California conservatives who thinks the problems of the state are purely political. I know it’s not that simple. California is a victim of its easygoing dreamscape geography.

I know I complained incessantly about the camping trip we went on to Washington DC but I do miss adults and kids working together. Mr. Cox tells me that he believes if you do anything for the boys they will not learn to take care of themselves. I don’t know about this. I feel a nagging worry that this is a variety of Rosseauist thought, and since I was raised with a similar attitude and made a whole boatload of judgment errors, I worry it’s not a safe bet. But my first mandate for myself in groups of this type is “if someone else is running it, do not get in their way.”  That’s a variety of Catholic philosophy: obedience in all but sin. Respect hierarchy as long as you have a conscientious choice to do so.