I know there are people out there that like to do
stuff like this. Good for. I'll pass...
I remember back in the summer of '58 or '59, my father rented one of these for the five of us - him, my mom and my two brothers - and drove us all from NJ to Quebec for a week's vacation. Five of us in the station wagon and sleeping in that thing, camping out in public campsites and stuff.
Of course, me being the youngest, I had to ride in the back of the station wagon with all our stuff, not in the back seat with my two brothers. One day upon arriving in Canada, we stopped at one of their grocery stores and my Mom bought stuff to make sandwiches, including Canadian Bacon, which she mistook for ham. I shit myself in the back of the car 'cause my father kep telling me to 'hold it until we found a gas station'. I couldn't - I was six.
Longest seven days of my life. I'm fairly confident you have a similar story or two yourself...
What marketing genius thought naming a camping trailer NIMROD was a great idea?
ReplyDeleteWhen someone other than a classical literature nerd hears the term NIMROD they think of definition 2.
1. literary: a skillful hunter
2. informal•North American: a foolish or inept person.
Calling someone a "nimrod" in modern slang generally means to refer to them as foolish, stupid, or inept.
It's a colloquial term used as a less harsh substitute for words like "idiot" or "moron".
This is the first time Ive ever spoken of this since it happened . This was sometime in the mid 60's , we were all packed into the back seat of a 53 Plymouth , the trip was from Lee Mass to Lakeland Fla . It was the longest week Ive ever spent on the road in spite of having driven long haul truck for 45 years in later life . It wasn't bacon that got us , when we got to Fla the old man thought it would be a novelty to buy a couple of bags of fresh oranges and toss em to the kids in the back . Everything was cool for a while , when the urge hit there was no stopping it , 2 or 3 days of junk food made it worse . My God man , just thinking about it I can still smell it . This of course called a halt to the whole show as he went searching for a motel so we could get cleaned up and get out and move around some , my mother threw our clothes away .
ReplyDelete"Camping" means i've gotten so sleepydriving that I've pulled in to a motel 6.
ReplyDeleteI was a kid in the 70's who went camping (at campgrounds) six or eight weekends every Summer. I noticed that there seemed to be an unspoken competition amongst the fellow campers to see who could have the best creature comforts, in an effort to make it most like staying home. We had a pop-out camper with an icebox. Only tents were below us in status. A hard shell camper was much more desirable, and the bigger the better. The highest status was of course the motor homes. The holy grail was to have an outdoor T.V. antenna on your motor home. Like I said, it was an absurd competition.
ReplyDeleteI taught my kids that going to a campground with utility hookups is not camping. A backpack in the wilderness is "camping".
We had a pee-can, a quart sized coffee can. When we needed to go we prayed that there were no sharp turns or bumps in the pavement ahead. God help you if we were on a gravel road. After use, Dad would stop on the side of the road and pour it out. We'd stop if we had to poop, but he always stopped at a service station 1/2 hour to an hour after we ate (always sandwiches from a cooler at a 'roadside park') so we didn't usually have to go on the side of the road. Only once, as I remember. I ran behind a bush with a wad of TP in my hand.
ReplyDeleteLike Forrest Gump says, "it happens".
ReplyDeleteI don't why s\$hit stories are so funny, but they are and I almost spewed my coffee when I read these accounts. Thanks for the memories.
What? Crapping yourself when you were six? Hell, I didn't start crapping myself until I was well into my 70's....
ReplyDelete