when we were little

my whole life, as long as i can remember we used to go on family trips in the summer. i think everyone does it. i'm sure most people go to exotic places, warm places, expensive places. we didn't. we went camping.

i loved it. i still love camping. i can't begin to imagine all the planning mom and dad had to do to get everything packed up and ready. after all, there were three of us little shits to take care of for a week. i think we used to go for a week or 4 or 5 days. i can't remember. the night before i would be so excited that i would usually make myself sick and vomit all over the place. have you ever been so excited that you puked on yourself? it's something.

anyhow, every year all three of us got a new pair of flip-flops from walgreens, i think, or k-mart or shopko, somewhere like that. you know, those skinny soled rubbery ones.... the ones that would rub right between your big and second toe making a red mark that would go directly from a mark to a scab..... somehow they skipped the blister stage. anyway, sometimes dad would pull the toe thing really hard so that it would stretch or the knobber thing on the bottom would pull up more flush on the bottom thereby leaving more room for your foot to fit in. if you've had these kind of flip-flops you know what i'm talking about. anyway, we also got a new raincoat. i've come to find out that these coats were actually disposable adult sized coats. i guess mom would stand us up on the picnic table and cut around the bottom so the coat wouldn't drag on the ground. i don't really remember it all that well. but i do remember sometimes getting to choose a color. you know how those coats are always clear and sometimes shaded, but basically clear. you know the ones, they are hanging at the checkouts all the time folded up the size of a wallet...... "emergency ponchos". ours weren't ponchos, because we might have actually gotten lost inside, so they were definately the rain jacket style, with little plastic buttons.

every time we went camping, there was inevitably a rainstorm of a varying degree. but, those coats got used every single trip. we'd always try to be really careful because if you snap and unsnap the buttons too many times, they just rip through the plastic, then you've got yourself a snapped snap that isn't holding anything shut.

anyway, i think camping is fun. i had fun as a kid. some time soon, i'll tell the story about the canteen and the well water and the pit toilets. i think you can see where i'm going with this........