Tom Clancy once said, "Every person you meet is another opportunity to learn." He said it like it was a good thing, but after my latest camping experience I've just had a crash course in people--and it wasn't my favorite. We pulled into camp to find a boyscout troop taking up one of the areas and three single guys taking up all the rest. My dad quickly made friends with RON who said we could share his fire pit. JOE said we were good to pull in as well. Unfortunately, we didn't check with LARRY as he wasn't even in our immediate vicinity. Had I known about LEO, we may never have pulled in at all.
Before we'd been there long, Larry (the guy we didn't check with) had turned up his eclectic oldies-country-jazz-big band music as loud as he could without blowing a speaker, then waited for me to go fight with him about it. Honestly, some of it wasn't bad, but I swear he was trying to find all his B-sides.
I was really nice as I told him my "special needs" boy would appreciate knowing when the music might be turned off. (Okay, so I don't have a typical special needs child but, most of us in the family do have the special need of not listening to music blaring in the woods for twenty-four hours straight. And if push came to shove, which it nearly did, I know there's a teacher or two that would give me a special needs voucher for this kid). But despite my playing that particular card, Larry told me to go back where I came from, yada, yada, yada.
The kids wanted to set up the opera CD we keep around for when they're bad in the car, but I'd seen Larry's sound system. We didn't stand a chance.
I told them we were going to be like Jesus and turn the other cheek. It ended up working in the end, but if we'd have had the equipment for it, I'm ashamed to say opera would likely have joined the cacophony in the forest. Really. Bad. Opera. (Okay, I don't actually know if it's bad opera or good opera because opera's not my thing, but I kind of like that "Figaro" song, and this, I do not like).
After my chat with Larry, I had to apologize to Joe--really loudly, so he could hear me over the music. Joe mentioned he was a chocolatier when we pulled in and offered my five kids two chocolates. Three of them obviously felt bad. He flirted when I was by myself and stayed away when my husband was around. He checked out my watch at length until I told him the 60 rhinestones around the face weren't actual diamonds. Anyway, Larry said that JOE said that we were nice when we wanted a spot to camp but that he felt bad we hadn't socialized much since. This is just a couple hours after we'd pulled in.
Really? Single guys in the woods want the family of seven to chat with them?
So anyway I apologized to Joe who seemed to be playing both sides of the game. He claimed he was worried Larry had dementia along with a penchant for drama and that he was sorry, but he didn't know when the music would stop.
Liar!
Leo had come over to ask about the music when it started up and told us that both Larry and Joe said they were trying to drive us out of camp with it.
Of course Leo's motives are also questionable...
But now, I have to give the Lord a point. Niceness truly worked. Who would have thought? Or maybe Larry realized he was hurting himself as much as us, and we weren't budging.
Leo totally adopted us. He showed up in swim gear when we swam. He got in his truck and watched us all from time to time as we went about our day. When we told him we were going to bed, he went back to his camp, but then brought us a little pudding cup. Husband swears it was to see if we were really going to bed.
When we went into town for pizza he told Husband to call him when we got to the restaurant so he could meet up with us. As we walked down the street to the pizza place, Leo shouted to Husband from a block away. He'd been waiting for us to show. So we ate pizza with Leo and we shopped with Leo and we had malts with Leo. And as we left camp for good, Leo was parked by the roadside waiting to honk and wave to us. He had showed up even before we left to give us an orange for breakfast.
Turns out the only guy I really liked was Ron--the one who said he'd share his fire pit with us. He was homeless, toothless, and told a good tale. He said he worked at age 16 for what he thought was a banker repossessing cars. Turned out to be a chop shop. The judge said he could do 20 years or join the military. So at age 17, Ron became a marine, went to Vietnam and can't remember anything of the 22 days he spent there. He was told that they were in a firefight, ran out of ammo and a US airstrike was called in to just wipe everyone out. He was found alive with six others and spent the next two years in a coma. Okay...isn't this the plot to a movie I'm forgetting the title of? Don't even get me started on his Dachshund/dryer vent/eagle trauma.
Anyway, Homeless Ron had set up a tent to save his camp spot but slept in his van, leaving early every morning to do odd jobs in town. I hope he has his teeth by now. They were supposed to be coming in the mail. To where...I'm not sure.
So, maybe what Clancy meant was not that everyone you meet has something good to teach you. Maybe they all just offer fabulous story ideas...like a ring of four men who lure in and rob, torture, hustle and/or cannibalize family campers. Or the story of why these four men have been camping FOR THREE MONTHS. Or how one woman's possession of a hideous opera CD can save a whole town against the rule of an evil DJ. (Did I mention half of Larry's tongue was swollen and black? It totally added to the conversation we had.)
I have never known the people I've been camping around so well, nor been so afraid, while camping--including the time we were in a tent with just our one year old baby surrounded by howling coyotes and no one else near. But probably then I would have liked Leo to appear with a pudding.
Leo wants Husband to friend him on Facebook. I'm begging Husband to not.
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