Dreaming

Lately I have been fantasizing about going camping. I think my family is somewhat relieved that in talking about wanting to go camping. It means I have stopped, briefly, in my ongoing campaign extolling all the benefits that would come from me owning a golf cart. Although camping and golf carts are far from being mutually exclusive. There are, in fact, few activities that would not be aided by having a compact, nearly silent low-speed, motorized vehicle. But that is beside the point. For many years, I would plan an annual camping trip with my college roommate Brian, and some of our other friends. Since Brian’s death a few years ago, my heart hasn’t been in it and I have avoided scheduling and organizing camping trips. Added to this was that things seem to have gotten much more busy than they used to be. The past few years have been pretty much a dead run with multiple events going on every weekend of the year. On one hand, this is great. Covering and participating in community events is a highlight of my job and one of the major things that has kept me mostly (well sort of) sane over the past three decades. If it wasn’t something I had to cover, it would be something others in my family would be doing that would prevent any sort of family trip from taking place. Over the past week, I have been getting hit with memory postings on my social media feeds about past camping trips. It has been a sort of fast forward with each day bringing a new picture of my son Alex growing up from a little guy to being taller than I am. Some part of me has the idea that going camping with him would be a way to recapture memories of when he was a little dude and we would find cool sticks to sword fight with while pretending we were pirates. A more reasonable part of me recognizes that you can never turn back time, and besides I am more likely to trip and fall and need to be hauled away if I play pretend pirates in the woods. As a side note, hauling my braised body would be easier with a golf cart. So instead, I have been plotting out a camping trip to take. Provided, of course, that I can figure out a time to take it. One of the great things about Taylor County is that there are a number of camping options nearby. My favorite local spots are the campgrounds along the Mondeaux Flowage. I enjoy the amount of space in the campsites in the national forest and sense of being in the woods, even when there are other people around. My family is less enthusiastic about my desire for a camping trip. They point out that if I want to go camping there is nothing that prevents me from going on my own without them. Meanwhile they will happily stay at home with the air conditioning on and where there is running water and flush toilets and a reduced chance of being eaten by a bear. There are many people who are perfectly content spending time alone and who will seek out solitude. I am not one of those people. Perhaps it was a product of my upbringing of growing up with a large, loud and boisterous family, or perhaps it is some personality trait that I picked up along the way, but in general I prefer to be around other people. Even if we are all just sitting around reading or staring into a fire, it is more enjoyable if someone is there with me. I need to point out to someone the really cool spider web glistening with dew or to share that I find loons to be a bit on the creepy side with their blood red eyes and wailing calls. Most of all, it helps to have someone around so that I am not left alone with my own thoughts which range from plotting out in detail wild new events — like setting up a competitive golf cart street racing circuit. Or alternatively, they dwell on past missteps or embarrassing situations from decades past. So this leaves me with the logistical battle of carving out camping time when either my wife or son, or both are able to go along. I’ll let you know how that works out. Brian Wilson is News Editor at The Star News. Contact Brian at BrianWilson@centralwinews.com.