Campfire Tales

When I was a kid we loved camping out "back in the woods" behind our rural Missouri neighborhood home. Prior to reaching the age of majority (13), parental instructions were "no camp fires", so of course the first thing we did once we settled on a campsite was establish a nice campfire. I'm sure we came home smelling like smoke and I don't recall how we got by with it. I'm guessing maybe we washed our smoke filled clothes before our moms had a chance to smell them. Then again, maybe as long as we made it home alive our moms turned a blind eye. We were after-all country kids who for the most part came from relatively hardy stock.

After all these years I've never tired of sitting around a campfire and listening to friends tell stories about mostly ridiculous things. Like the first time my friend Tony (pictured above) went goose hunting as a kid and shot his first goose. His excitement quickly abated, however, when the game warden (who just happened to be standing near by) informed Tony and his Dad that his trophy goose was in reality, a seagull. According to the game warden, seagulls were not on the list of game birds that can be legally harvested and this of course resulted in Tony's dad getting fined the appropriate amount for seagull whacking. If memory serves, this was the last time Tony or either of his two brothers shot a seagull. I believe this was also when Tony's Dad bought the book "All About Animals" and required Tony and his brothers to learn it by heart-especially the parts with pictures.

It all turned out good in the end, however, as Tony learned a valuable lesson about hunting that would serve him well later in life: know what the thing you're hunting for actually looks like BEFORE you go hunting for it, which seems to make quite a bit of sense.

Regarding sitting around the campfire, I'll keep you posted....