Last weekend my integration into polite society took another step forward, as I took Finn on his first Scout camp-out. This, the wife  reasoned, would be something fun for Finn, and would also give me the ‘opportunity’ to socialize with some of the other dads. The wife normally takes Finn to the weekly scout meetings so why it is necessary for me to get involved too, I don’t know. That said, I have met some of them before and some are actually alright (Mr. Tim), so I guess there are worse people to spend time with. Plus, going with Finn on the camp-out would at least give me the opportunity to make sure there was no funny business going on with the Scout Masters (and not funny like Carry On Camping. Not that that was particularly funny. Or wholesome, for that matter.)
The camp-out was Friday thru Sunday, at a huge dedicated scout grounds in the woods, a couple of miles from the nearest sign of civilization (a Waffle House – though that may not actually count as ‘civilization’…). The campsite was only about 30 miles North of Houston, but it took us a full two hours to get there on the Friday, what with the rush-hour traffic. So that didn’t put me in the best mood to start with. Nor Finn, for whom sleeping in the back seat was all too much to bear, resulting in him moaning “Are we there yet?” during every (brief) waking moment. Once we got to the campsite Finn ran straight off to play with his friends, leaving me to pitch the tent and blow up the airbeds (they were supposed to be ‘self-inflating’ – my arse, they were!), only reappearing once his sleeping bag was rolled out and his pillow plumped (or at least inflated). Thanks for your help there, boy!
Still, the weekend was an experience. I think the only times I’ve been camping since I was a kid was the Glastonbury Festivals, and compared to the conditions there, this was a five-star hotel. There were flushable toilets – with toilet roll! – and a shower (albeit cold, as I found out to my cost the first morning – and then had to dry myself with a t-shirt because I’d forgotten to pack towels), and nary a raincloud in sight. Yet even this was too much like roughing it for most of the parents (typically the dads, but some scouts were accompanied by their mums instead, although I’m not sure if this was single parents, or just dads who had been through it before and didn’t like the thought of doing it again…). Americans like their convenience, so I was kind of interested to see how they coped with ‘the great outdoors’. The simple answer was that they just brought the comforts of home with them.
Finn and I had a small ‘three-man’ tent (actually big enough for two people and a rucksack), but others had tents that could have quite easily accommodated a dozen people. And American-sized people, at that. Apparently mobile homes are deemed to be “not in the spirit” of camping, otherwise I’m sure there would have been a row of them in the parking lot (instead of the trucks and SUVs). Even so, several tents were fitted out with fold-out camp beds (called cots – infant cots being called cribs…), and real pillows and duvets. And those that did bring blow-up mattresses cheated by using the air-compressor on their truck to blow them up. So much for the spirit of camping.
I’m a bit old-school, and believe you should only take camping what you can physically carry (this used to be my motto for any kind of travel, until I had kids, at which point it becomes almost impossible – especially if you have to carry the kids as well). Some of the parents on the camp-out struggled just to carry their stuff from the car-park to the adjacent campground (all of 50 yards).  That said, when it came to the cooking facilities, I was kind of glad they brought everything but the kitchen sink. No, wait. They had one of those, too. The den leader (who towed in a trailer that even had a filing cabinet in it – what was she thinking of??) had dozens of boxes of food, several gas camping stoves, pots and pans, and even some kind of ‘travel’ kitchen that unfolded into a stove with a cupboard underneath it, work surfaces to both sides, and a set of shelves above it for putting your (h)erbs and spices on. Which they’d also brought. They even had a couple of stovetop coffee percolators which I initially thought was a nice concession to the parents (the campsite being ‘dry’), until I saw the queue of cub scouts in the morning, all waiting grumpily for their caffeine fix.
The food was pretty good, with all of us parents pitching in to feed the several dozen scouts. Most impressive was the ‘dump cake’, cooked in a ‘Dutch oven’. This consisted of dumping (hence the name) a couple of tins of fruit filling, a couple of boxes of cake mix, and a stick of butter into a cast-iron pot, pouring ginger beer over the top, then placing it on top of hot coals and piling more hot coals on the pot lid. I’m not sure if the ‘Dutch oven’ is the pot, or the way of putting coals on top, but it worked really well – somehow the ingredients magically got mixed, and turned into a pretty decent fruit crumble.  (I had my own Dutch oven in my sleeping bag later, but I think that was a result of the beans in the silver turtles (unappetizingly pronounced “turdles”, here in Texas).)
The weekend passed pretty quickly, with plenty of scouting activities for the boys, including learning how to start a fire, rafting (past a crocodile, which the kids got a kick out of), fishing, assault courses, ‘capture the flag’ and so on. What little time wasn’t taken up with these organized activities or mealtimes was spent with the scouts basically chasing each other around with sharpened sticks (whittling skills to the fore…). Surprisingly there were no accidents, and the only time I had to open the first aid kit (one of several bestowed upon me by work over the years) was to crack out the Tylenol to combat the constant screaming…
There were a couple of ‘meetings’ as well – one to mark the passing of five boys from cub scouts to boy scouts (a big deal, with plenty of pomp and sense of occasion), and a church service on the Sunday morning (first one I’ve been to since I left school – still does nothing for me…), during which we all had to sing America The Beautiful – quite a challenge for me, as although the words were printed on the service sheet I had no idea of the tune. Luckily, my singing is so flat no-one could notice if I missed going up or down when I was supposed to… And thankfully we were spared the ‘ging gang gooly’ round the campfire at night.
What with everything that was going on, the camping weekend wasn’t exactly the father/son bonding experience I was hoping for. In fact, I hardly saw Finn for the two days, as he was off mucking about with his two new best friends, only appearing at mealtimes and (under duress) at bedtime – which was delayed until about 11pm (past my usual bedtime…). And the few times I did call him over, all I got was “Uuuuhh, whaaat?? Why are you always trying to stop me having fun??”. He’s like Kevin the Teenager, five years early. I did wonder just why I wanted to bond with that…
Still, it wasn’t an entirely lost weekend. I did socialize with the other dads, which means I can now tick that box off on the checklist of things the wife thinks I need to do to be a better father/husband/human, or whatever her plan is. At this rate I’ll be right in line for my ‘Sociable’ belt-loop by Christmas!
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