Ol' Lot 67

Some adventures are in the untamed rural wilds and the next little tale is just one such example.
It was some years back, in 1992 if my now fading memory serves, when one of my angsty friendships with a young fellow named Hawkins was at its peak. He and I had been in high school together but as I was in a senior year; we had never really met. Working together in our post high school employment as gas-jockeys at an Esso service station with a plethora of fellow hopeless career cases would be where our friendship was fastened.
One long weekend, he and I decided to take to the Ontario outback on a camping excursion. Hawk was quite insistent that we venture to a new campsite of which he had heard and which came with high recommendations from his friends. We packed up my beat up ol’ Sunbird with all our camping gear and headed out onto the highway for our three-hour journey to this legendary campground.
Our arrival came fairly late in the evening and well after dark. Much to our chagrin, we quickly learned that it was a "hike-to" interior campsite and that it was about a 45-minute to 1 hour hike away. Of course, in the dark and with my somewhat heavy-duty camping gear and, furthermore, with no backpack to speak of, there was clearly no hope of us making such a trek. However, it was very late and we were all exhausted, so I suggested that we just hike into the forest right next to the parking lot and pitch our tent for the night, then go and find a more suitable campsite in the morning.
Hawk and I went a few minutes into the bush with our flashlights and scoped out what seemed to be a fairly suitable location at the base of a rocky ridge. With more than a little difficulty, we pitched the tent in the dark and retrieved our sleeping bags from the car. As I crept into the tent, I noticed that the floor was a little damp and I said that there must have been a lot of moisture and dew on the foliage. Hawk said, "Who cares? My sleeping bag is water-proof."
"Yeeeaaah, I don't think so. My sleeping bag isn't. Fuck this, Hawk, I'm sleeping in the car," I said.
"Suit yourself, but I'm staying here where I'm not cramped."
"I don't know, Hawk. Maybe you should come back to the car."
"Hell no! Piss off! Goodnight, sissy boy. A little water never hurt anyone."
"Fine, then! Sweet dreams."
I returned to the car where I enjoyed a reasonably comfortable night stretched out in the back seat as best I could. Just as I was falling asleep, I was graced with a semi-conscious sense of ironic justice as I heard the faint beginnings of rain tapping on the roof of the car.
Come the morning, it was clear that it had rained quite heavily all night long and was still coming down fairly. I tumbled out of the car, and wasn't quite sure which direction to go and seek Hawk in my sleepy, morning disorientation. After a few moments, I regained my bearings and headed into the bush to wake my tent-insistent friend.
The scene before me was pure slapstick. As it turned out, the moisture I had felt on the floor of the tent had actually been a small stream. With an overnight torrent of rain, and residing at the base of a rocky incline, it had transformed into a full-fledged river which perfectly entered the rear of the tent and then poured out the front. I dashed to the tent opening to see what had become of my friend. He was still snuggled up in his 'water-proof' sleeping bag. With it wrapped tightly around his head only his face was visible. He was literally sleeping in a river. The water was spouting upwards over each of his shoulders in the same pattern taken by water travelling over protruding rocks in a fast-moving river. His eyes were pursed closed and he was wearing a stubborn, self-satisfied and very forced grin that suggested thoughts of, "I'm not frustrated or angry. I'm not uncomfortable. I'm happy and I slept well. I was right to stay in the tent." He remained defensively silent through the tedious process of dismantling and packing the drenched tent. Eventually he broke the silence and begrudgingly admitted that he hadn’t slept particularly well.
Later that day, we drove up the highway in search of a more suitable campground that might be nearby so we could get set up while there was still sunlight. The only thing we found was a little KOA-style campground that was obviously privately owned as it was fronted by a large house. It was really not much more than an open field with a gravel road down the middle and numbers evenly spaced along each side. Even worse was the fact that it was quite crowded and would not offer us the privacy we had hoped for with a beer cooler full of Rye whiskey. We noticed a hand-written sign over the front door that read "Ofice". That is how it was spelled. I chuckled to myself and knocked on the door. The gentleman that answered the door, was an older fellow with a very red, ruddy complexion, and for some reason, a very maritime-sounding, rural accent. He was wearing hip-wader overalls, but for the life of me, the only body of water that I could surmise was within a twenty kilometer radius was the stream Hawk had slept in the night before.
Unphased, I said, "Hi. We'd like a site for the night, but we were wondering if you had anything with a little more privacy." His response was a little unexpected.
"Aaaah. Ya's wants ol' lot 67, does ya? Well, shure'nuff. Jes' head on up the highway here and turn on the gravel road at the top o' ther hill. Park there and ya's kin camp up in the space on the top this here hill. Nice'n private. Twenny bucks."
I paid the old character and we ventured on up the hill. Sure enough, there was a beautiful clearing at the top of the hill at the edge of a cliff base and well in from the noise of the highway. There was a small firepit, a geriatric picnic table in the twilight of its useful days and a wonderful warm breeze caressing over the top of the cliff. We had an only mildly obscured view overlooking the dots of campfire light emanating from the field of campsites below. I couldn't believe our luck that nobody else had inquired after this spot. It was the type of campsite that would be considered paradise by any mildly urbanized outdoors-lover for which you'd pay a hundred bucks.
We set up our tent, cracked one of our bottles and decided it was time for supper. It was only then that we realized that we had failed to stop at a gas station to purchase any firewood.
"No problem," said Hawk and he laid all of his weight upon one of the top 2x4 strands of the ailing picnic table. With the crunch and crack of the aged wood, he managed to break off a fair sized piece of timber with which we started a great little fire. Only a few minutes later, I was again surprised to see the ruddy, old character appear in the clearing proudly straddling a riding mower sized little tractor that sounded like a '57 Chevy and pulling a little trailer full of firewood.
"Well I's jes' down ther bottom this hill here and done hear my poor picnic table takin' a beatin' so I done figger I best bring on up some firewood 'afore ya's all does away w' me ol' table. Twenny bucks." For a second, time I paid the man and away he went. We made short work of the firewood and it was well into the wee hours of the morning when we decided that we were in dire need of more wood.
We burned every last splinter of that poor picnic table before dawn. We readily placated our eccentric host with our last “twenny bucks.”
See you in hell,
Shakes.