Making Camp
Whatever you did, you didn’t want to touch those walls in a rainstorm. And it was heavier than all get-out. When I was a young boy, and even today, the family camping tent was and remains an important tool and a special space. I remember laying down in that big green canvas tent — fairly certain it was a Coleman — and feeling so awfully ill after one of the first times my older brother gave me a few leaves of chewing tobacco. I must have been 10 or so. Just the same, I look forward every year to Fourth of July camping trips with my wife, when it’s just the two of us, and we team up to make sure our gear stays dry and we’re safe out of the elements.
As a youngster, camping for my family was all about sleeping under the sky and hearing the crickets, frogs, and other sounds of the night; and the camaraderie that goes with that
