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Camping
made sense once
the Extra Gang got farther and farther away
from where most workers lived. I camped infrequently those
two summers, but often enough to experience plenty. Most
of my friends were, like me, college students. They spent
copiously on liquor and drugs. Me? Beer in hand, I was into
observing their behavior. Just like Jane Goodall and the
gorillas.
Barbiturate night remains vivid in my memory. Some wise soul
brought barbiturates to the camp fire. I kept my hand over
the mouth of my beer to prevent someone from "accidentally"
dosing me. Then I took mental notes. Here is one of my
actual mental notes from that night:
"9:15 p.m. - Loke is standing in the campfire. I knock him out of it.
He claims his mind told his feet to move but they
wouldn't listen."
Mike participated too fully in barbiturate night. The next morning,
his best friend couldn't rouse him from sleep. We left for
work with him still unconscious. When we returned to the
campsite at 3:00 p.m., he was finally able to wake up. He
could have died while we were away. The good news is that tonight
is peyote night!
One weekday C.O. and I were sitting on a picnic table. We heard
vehicle noises, but not coming from the road. They came from a field
bordering our campsite. It was Mike and his pickup. He was
coming home from work the back way. To get through the barbed
wire fences, he would aim at a fence post and run it over. That
night was the night of the Mike and Rhonda incident. The
next day after work I decided to ride home with some other guys
to my parents home and give up camping for awhile. That afternoon
when the campers went back
to the campground, the friendly County Sheriff was waiting to
evict them.
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