WHOLLY FAMILY

Happy campers

Heavenly times, life lessons on family trips

By Mary Moore | May 21, 2009 | The Catholic Sun

I imagine most of us have had tent experiences. Maybe it was the blanket-draped-over the-dining-room-chairs variety, or the backyard canvas fort set-up with 30 neighborhood kids going in and out until all fell down.

Then there was the first real overnight at a campground trying to sleep on bumpy, uneven earth while siblings stepped on each other during a midnight trek to the latrine.

Whichever the case, each experience taught us a little something about the inimitable role of family. My father, a civil engineer, was our hero the way he could make a duffel bag full of seemingly mismatched poles, ropes, canvases and ground stakes become a livable shelter for our family of six.

My brothers and I were shaped by a hundred experiences out in the wild, from mastering the proper composition of the aforementioned duffle bag contents, to the physics of creek stone skipping, to the art of marshmallow charring, to discovering the immeasurable value of applying mosquito repellent before sundown.

One camping lesson even included an experiment with planting popcorn! When our unfastened car-top carrier blew its lid during a rushed ride to a small town church, the local prairie was covered with the contents of a three-foot long

bag of yellow, salted kid-sustenance. I never researched it, but I’ll bet Verde Valley grew an unexpected crop of corn the next year.

There is something about having nothing to do for days but hunt for sticks, hike, fish, and play card games with the same people which bonds family in a way that choreographed nights around the TV simply can’t.

I can remember thinking that heaven would smell like campfires and wet pine trees. Besides, didn’t Peter at one point ask Jesus — in the presence of two heaven-dwelling figures — if they could pitch three tents? I knew there would be camping in heaven!

No place like home

At some point in my late adolescence our family graduated to a tent camper on wheels that we owned in partnership with another family. What luxury! Then we were off to neighboring states and rendezvousing with cousins who were traveling cross-country in similar digs.

Luxurious a dwelling as it was, cranking up our house and zipping up our windows at night did a lot to help us appreciate the real thing when we got home. So did six people asleep in a space the size of a small kitchen, sink and all. Home looked extra sweet to us after many such trips.

And it was at home, in the off season, when our camper found new uses. Parked on the side of our house, that happy little beast made sleepovers with friends fulfilling to a juvenile’s sense of adventure and seclusion, while still being only a stone’s throw from the amenities that one often misses on a camping trip; namely, a stocked fridge and an ample bathroom.

Once it even served as home to a local 20-year-old who had no place to stay. My folks let him make our trailer his abode for about six weeks, coming into the house through the back door for some of the necessities of life. I am pretty sure my dad changed out the camper’s “wall art” often during his stay, alternating various and encouraging Scripture passages on colored note cards. I pray he was helped. At least he surely learned what we learned from both tent and camper: a home can be a home, be it ever so humble.

As current economic conditions force us all to live with less, let’s remember this summer that to be “wholly” family does not require more stuff and busier schedules to offset what we lack at home. It does require an environment that fosters love for those whom God has entrusted to our care.

So to all the other happy campers out there this summer, may your firewood be dry, your fish bait alluring, and the latrine not far off from your humble abode.