20 Lessons from a Solo Backpacking Trip

1. Tent stakes work best if you remember to bring them along and don't leave them on the kitchen table. 

2. It's not the end of world if you forgot the tent stakes. Stringing up ones tarp to trees, tying to roots and sticks as makeshift stakes works ok too.  See lesson 1.

3. Beetles are very crunchy and have a squashy center.

4. Inspect EVERY bite of your dinner before consuming. You just never know if something landed there.  See lesson 3.

5. FiveFingers make fantastic camp shoes but they're almost impossible to put on over soggy feet.  Bring a bandana. 

6. Confirmed from last backpacking trip...Fresh marshmallows do indeed melt better than old ones. 

7. Despite it's close resemblance to dryer lint, piles of dog hair does not make good fire starter. It works very well if you add fuel.  See lesson 8. 

8. Don't use fuel to start a fire unless you don't mind singeing all the hair on your hand, arm, leg and eyebrows. 

8. I don't like spiders...nothing new. I REALLY don't like spiders the size of my palm with eyes that glow in the dark when your flashlight shines on them at just the right angle. Yeah I don't like that. 

9. Inspect the rock you intend to place your clothing on while you swim naked for large quantities of enormous palm-sized scary glowing bug-eyed spiders.  See lesson 8.

10. When chanting and dancing naked around the fire make sure you're far enough away so that when it pops embers, one doesn't land directly on your leg. 

11. If you plan to dance naked and close to your fire, make sure your first aid kit contains a packet of Glacier Gel...a burn patch. Or two. See lesson 10.

12. The single-most important piece of gear on a SOLO backpacking trip: the back scratcher. Hands down. If you forgot a backscratcher, rubbing against a tree works well too.

13. Gore-tex boots only work if you manage to not allow water to spill over the top. 

14. When crossing creeks with wet slippery rocks while wearing dry boots, don't slip.  See lesson 13.

15. Dark Chocolate M&M's are better than Special Dark Hershey's Pieces. They come in much prettier colors too. Hershey's Pieces are muchas yuckas. That's Spanish for "not yummy at all". 

16. Beware the holly leaves.  Using dry leaves and dirt for a cleaning agent is normally my preferred method of doing dirty dishes. That is until I camped under a grove of holly trees. Ouch!

17. You go to bed so much earlier without a campfire. No doubt this translates to the phone/tv/Internet at home.

18. When your exhausted dog asks politely to spoon with you under your tarp...let him. It makes for a very sweet night. 

19. After waking up in the middle of the night and staring directly into the eyes of a big, scary spider mere inches from my face, I've determined it's time to buy a bug net. See lesson 8.

20. Mom likes backpacking too and picks the best campsites. See previous post Lost for the story.  Mental note: be sure and invite her along for the next trip.  :D

Lost

Two years and two months ago, I lost my mom. One month later I lost my job.  Momless and jobless, I was feeling rather lost.  I took myself on a 4-day solo backpacking trip to collect my thoughts and regroup. Being lost is certainly not the best thing to be when going backpacking alone but being a wiz with a map and compass and the route-finding not that difficult, I wasn't worried that I would ever be physically lost.  It was mid-July and extremely hot. For frame of reference, Hunger Games movie fans will note that it was the same summer the movie was filmed. In the special features on the DVD, the kids talk about how beastly hot it was here in Western North Carolina during their shoot.  It was the sort of hot that makes your clothes and everything else stick to you. Bugs, dirt, a leaf or pine needles that you brushed against...everything. Water beads up on your forehead the instant you wipe it off and despite the presence of eyebrows it still drips down and stings your eyes.  No amount of wiping your face does any good.  My backpack pressing against my back and hips did not help matters. At. All.  Even rock-hopping 13 times over the ice cold creek in one day and stopping periodically to dunk my head, I was still dragging ass due to the high temps.  I could not consume nearly enough water and I refilled my 3-liter Camelbak bag several times to keep up with sweat loss.  Even an I-V would not have been fast enough!  My second day on the trail and I had been hiking on and off for only about 5 hours but exhaustion from the heat was really taking its toll.  Had we not taken so many "its so hot I cant breathe rest breaks" the distance we covered in five hours could probably have been done in 90 minutes. My dog was whooped and flopped down to rest in the shade every chance he got. 

 We both needed a dip in the creek and we needed it soon.  At about 5pm we crossed the creek for what felt like the millionth time and found an adequate but less than ideal campsite just on the other side. It was fairly slanted, rather rooty and rocky and had no existing fire pit...although with the heat I didn't so much want a fire but it would help with the inevitable onslaught of mosquitos.  I could not take another pack-laden step so I figured I'd deal with it...I've slept in far worse places before.  "This is it, Jake", I told my dog. We were both hungry and I had no idea how close another campsite would be. This one would just have to do. My pack came off and it accidentally fell to the ground with a loud thud.  I probably just dented my stove and my cook set...oh well. Despite years of being taught never to sit on my pack, had I sat directly on the ground to change my shoes I'm not sure I would have gotten back up...the pack became my temporary couch.  I unlaced my shoes but pulling them off my feet practically required a crowbar to get them to loosen their sweaty glue grip. Once off, I began the procedure of peeling off my soggy summer-weight SmartWool hiking socks.  Peeling an apple with only your fingernails would have been easier.  A bandana became an essential piece of equipment just then as I used it to dry my feet so that I could jimmy into my Vibram FiveFingers. Lots of toe-wiggling and tugging and pulling and wiggling and they were finally on. More sweat poured off my face from the shoe-change work-out.  At this point I was beyond eager for a dip in the cold creek to cool down before cooking over a hot open flame.  As I made my way across the campsite to head to the water, a large angry horsefly interrupted my path. The darn thing zeroed in on both Jake and me with a vengeance and we had to bolt to the creek to get away. Splash!  Into the water clothes and all...ahhhh, relief.  It was relief from the nasty horsefly but also from the searing brain-cooking heat.  I put my feet up and floated blissfully on my back soaking tired muscles and bones in the ice-cold waters of Harper Creek.  I floated and soaked for what seemed like forever and afterward hopelessly, soaplessly scrubbed dirt and sweat and grime from my very dirty body. Jake enjoyed it as well as the water was deep enough for him to swim and not just wade.  With the removal of his dog pack, he ran around splashing like a little puppy instead of the 10 year old senior dog he was. Eventually hunger overtook temperature and feeling mostly refreshed we went back to our crappy campsite. The horsefly hadn't forgotten about us and set about pestering Jake the moment we returned.  Hopeful it would go away, I began to pull out my stove and food. Jake jumped around like a rodeo bull snapping at the fly which was hell-bent on a painful sting to the butt. When it tired of contending with snapping jaws and flailing tail it came to torment me. I tried every trick I knew to kill that enormous and angry gray fly but to no avail.

It became very apparent that we would have to move but where would we go?  My aching feet didn't have another mile in them.  The fly's intensity increased, threatening our sanity.  Neither of us could take it any more and I said "Jake, we can't stay here". At that exact moment, the strangest occurrence of my life happened, for on those words, the fly left us alone. Sitting fly-free on my pack for a few minutes I thought we might be able to stay there after all. I told Jake, "I think it's gone, lets go ahead and eat."  At that moment, the second strangest occurrence of my life happened for on those words that damn persistent horsefly came back. Jake jumped and snapped and barked like I'd never seen him do before. The fly dive bombed me like I had threatened its young or something and was seeking revenge. If you've ever been stung by one of these things then you know its one of the most horrendously painful stings...worse than any bee or wasp.  In a fury I grabbed my open pack, stuffed my stove and food back in, barely buckled it closed and slung it one handed over one shoulder. With the other hand I reached down and grabbed my boots, Jake's pack and my trekking poles and in my flimsy FiveFingers I took off running down the trail.

The third strangest occurrence of my life happened less than 5 minutes after the first two.  A short distance of running lopsided and clumsy down the trail and we stepped into the most beautiful campsite I could have ever found. It was wide. It was flat. It wasn't rooty at all. It had delicious shade and best of all it had a fire pit with logs for seats. I slowly walked in to the campsite and gently set my pack and and the rest of my things down. The realization of what had just occurred slowly settled in to my brain and the only explanation I could think of was that my mom had come along on her very first backcountry backpacking trip.  She must have scoped out the potential campsites beforehand and when I had picked the wrong one and she "flew" in to intervene.  Why else would a fly like that pester us so badly and leave us alone when I said we were leaving?  I laughed out loud and verbally thanked her.  The instant my mouth was open to talk to her the tears came with it.  I bawled my eyes out for a little while at the very thought of her joining me for my hike.  The rest of the evening was perfect. It cooled off nicely once the sun went down and I cooked a yummy dinner. We had a nice fire and I roasted marshmallows and made s'mores. In the morning I took my sweet time and made a leisurely breakfast.  At about 11:30 I was finally packed up to hike for the day.  Even though she never made herself known again on that trip, I found comfort in knowing that I had a third party present, and I felt a little less lost. That site will always be My Mom's Campsite and is forever memorialized in permanent marker on my map. 

A Nutella Story

I LOVE Nutella.  I blame my friend Allison's husband Scott for turning me onto Nutella on the Saltine...even better than straight off the spoon. It's the perfect mix of sweet and salty. I was hooked right from the first crunch.  For a while I kept a jar in my car along with a Lexan butter knife.  The empties were beginning to pile up. One time I had gotten the big jar on sale...you know the one, its twice the size of the little one and twice as naughty.  

Naughty?  Yeah it's full of sugar but disguised and marketed as healthy.  Well, since they say its healthy it's ok to eat a ton of it, right?  Sssuuuuurrrrreeee...you tell yourself that you naughty person you. Good one. Anyway, one day I had failed to adequately clean my butter knife and it fell on the floor of my van.  Still being all Nutella-ey and sticky, it acquired all sorts of who knows what on it when it hit the floor...dirt, dog hair, spilled coffee, bits of Cool Ranch Dorito residue... what have you.  So, with my knife dirty and me the one who hates doing dishes, it never got washed and the half-eaten jar of Nutella got forgotten. So did the knife.  They both got buried underneath empty envelopes and discarded mail, more dog hair and more Cool Ranch Dorito residue.  It lived there for months and since it should not be refrigerated I was OK with that.  One of these days I'd dig it up for a snack if I ever had a clean knife. 

In my ages-long struggle to help my dog sleep at night and keep him from pacing and panting, I've tried lots of things.  I am pretty broke financially most of the time so going to the vet is kind of out of the question.  My back-up plan?  Facebook.  Lots of folks suggested that panting might mean he was in pain.  Some swear by aspirin for pain, others say NO aspirin NO WAY and suggest Rimadyl.  I can't afford Rimadyl because that will inevitably bring with it a bunch of tests and x-rays and an enormous vet bill. What to do?  My sleep was seriously becoming affected as Jake would pant and pace for hours usually between 2 and 6am. He'd flop himself down on the floor and three seconds later he'd be up to find a new spot. Sometimes it would be right next to my head and he'd pant loudly in my ear. All. Night. Long. I was beginning to go crazy and I was willing to try anything.  A good friend had had a cookout for her birthday and invited another friend whom I had never met before. He and I got to talking about ourselves and our lives and with it being at the forefront of my mind at the time, I brought up my pacing dog.  I told him how I suspected he may be in some arthritic pain or something.  He mentioned that he had recently helped an elderly dog of his with cancer sleep soundly at night with the use of liquid cannabis extract.  My ears perked up and they turned to listen.  The more he talked the more my eyes lit up with hope and I leaned in, "Do you think it would work for Jake?"   He said one tiny drop and the dog would sleep all night long.  Sold!  He said he still had some left and would be happy to sell it to me in hopes of helping my 12 1/2 year old Jake. I was eager to try it and followed him to his house after the gathering to make the purchase.  Just before bed, I got the dropper ready and squirted one...maybe two little drops into his mouth. Turning his head away, he didn't seem especially thrilled with the taste...here, have a biscuit to wash it down.  Wouldn't you know...that dog of mine slept ALL. NIGHT. LONG. and I was ecstatic!  Not one pant.  Not one flop. Not one tiny little pace!  In the morning we got up all refreshed and bouncy and headed first to the dog park and then to my residential life at Starbucks.  Being a chilly day, I left Jake in the van where he is most comfortable and I went inside to read and use the Internet, instead of grabbing our usual dog-friendly spot on the patio.  A couple of hours later I went out to check on him and he was passed out cold with a big goofy grin on his face.  His head barely twitched when I opened the sliding door. There on his bed tucked between his arms like a snuggly Teddy Bear was that damn jar of Nutella!  He had unearthed it from the depths of its months-long home on the Third Level, a term used to describe the state of my bedroom as a teenager.  The lid was broken off in two pieces and the sides of the jar licked crystal clear. The only part that wasn't licked clean was a thin layer at the very bottom just out of tongue's reach.  Coincidence?  I think not...damn dog had the munchies!!  Well...I guess I couldn't really blame him...I mean...who doesn't love Nutella?  I can just imagine him jonesing for a snack and finally finding something at the bottom of the pile, popping the lid off with one snap of the jaw.  Later I discovered he had also eaten an entire sleeve of saltines that he found on the front seat...I guess he likes sweet and salty too.   With it being dirty though, I don't think he used the butter knife.  Damn dog. Well...he's my damn dog and I can't help but love him, munchies and all.  I seem to have accidentally deleted the pics taken from that day but here's a similar one. 

We tried several more times with the drops but they never worked again like they did that first night. And then it occurred to me...they hadn't worked then either.  That had been the first night he was back with me after a week spent at At Play With Sparky...our favorite kennel/daycare (and the Best in Asheville) while I spent a week in Florida. He was simply worn out and slept like he always does after being At Play With Sparky.  All the drops did was give him a raging case of The Munchies and deplete my Nutella supply. :)

An Evening Well Spent

The dogs needed a walk and I suppose I did too.  I had been up til 4am with insomnia the night before and so I had been lounging around the house all day and had just let them out for quick potty breaks...but still they were asking to go for a walk.  “Okay, okay, okay… fine.  Let’s go.”  Since having overcome the inertia to get up and take the walk, I figured we might as well stay up and go somewhere.   After the dogs finished their business we headed down the mountain to the playground at Montreat…my new favorite place.  I go there to build cairns, my latest Inner Child-driven activity, but also to soak in the cold mountain water my still swollen injured-but-slowly-healing ankle.  I also find that it is a very meditative and therapeutic thing to do.  I found a good spot away from most of the people that were still lingering in the park after 6pm and hitched the dogs to a tree.  No time was wasted in climbing down the bank and into the creek.  Within minutes I had one, two, three cairns built.  The fourth one I struggled with a bit as the flat rock I was working with didn’t want to cooperate.  Finally, I managed to just barely balance said flat rock onto the point of a pyramid shaped rock, when a smallish stone jumped from my grip and flung itself directly onto the flat balanced one…bumping it off?.  Nope, the darn thing stuck like a magnet!  It didn’t wiggle and it never fell.  I couldn’t believe it!  My eyes practically popped out of my head and I let out a “WHOOP!” and immediately took a picture in case it didn’t last.  I swear sometimes these rocks really do have a mind of their own.  Or maybe some sort of Rock Faerie was hanging out lending assistance?  I bet that’s it.  

The Rock Faerie-Assisted Cairn with the stone that
jumped out of my hand and landed right on top

Whatever it was, willful rocks or rock faeries, I wanted more challenge, and so I thought I would give them a run for their money.  A large, triangle shaped rock presented itself to me and I stood it up on its point rather than its heavier, and easier, flat base.  Even after managing to get it to stay put, it took several tries to add more on top…but finally, Sweet Success!  Two more balanced on top and it’s done.

Precariously stacked

I was definitely proud of both of those two and very invested in their shelf life so I was a little apprehensive when right then two boys came over and struck up a conversation. 

Boys: “Did you make those?”

Me: “I did.”

Boys: “Whoa, that’s cool!  How did you do that?”

Me: “Well, have you ever played with blocks?”

Boys: “Yeah, but…”

Me: “Well its just like that only instead of playing with blocks, you play with rocks…and you just stack ‘em up.”

Boys: “Whoa…that looks hard.”

Me: “It is sometimes, but that’s why it’s fun. Try it!”

And they did, only I didn’t mean right here, right next to me…On the same set of base rocks I am using…I meant…ya know…OVER THERE! It’s a big creek ya know!!  I held my breath and bit my tongue and managed to keep my thoughts to myself...instead putting on the encouraging teacher face.

One boy wasn't at all interested and busied himself splashing about but the other boy took up residence inches from the cairn I built with the Rock Faerie’s help.  He bent over his work and his hair and his breath brushed my work.  My heart skipped.  I was certain he would clumsily knock it over and my vision of a whole field of cairns would be ruined. 

Boy: “Do you work here?”  He meant the Montreat Conference Center.

Me: “Nope.  I just play here, just like you.”  A big smile slowly took over his face while he comprehended that a grown-up was playing just to play.  The potential for him wreaking havoc had me a little bugged, but he finished his cairn, stood up proudly and romped off with the other boy.  Whew!  

The first child-built cairn inches from my Rock Faerie-assisted cairn

I was relieved that they came and went and left no destruction in their wake…I was pleasantly surprised and I knew my attitude needed an adjustment. I reminded myself that it’s just a pile of rocks and you already got the photos and it’s really no big deal.  Let it go…getting kids involved is a good thing...that’s what you want!  It is what I want, but sometimes my Overgrown 10 Year Old tendencies get the better of me and get in the way of rational thinking.  I continued working and more and more cairns came to be.   The more I worked, the more children came to be as well… It started with 3, and then 4 including the original two, back for more. 

Kids: “I like your castles.  How do you do that?  Why do you do that?  I wanna try that.  Can I try that?  How do you do it?  I wanna try that.  Is it hard?  It looks hard.  I can’t do that.  Can you show me how to do that?  Are they castles?  Can I help?  I wanna try.  Can I do it too?”  I heard from four kids all at once.

Again I said, “It’s just like stacking up blocks…Try it.  Just be careful…don’t knock the other ones down!”

I gave them no instruction, just lead by example.  In my own little world, I continued to focus on my work and take pictures…attitude fully adjusted. 

A little while later I stopped to take a minute to look around.  I was totally astounded!  A whole gaggle of children had come to play with me...no less than nine kids had gotten busy building.  If I had to guess, I would say they ranged in age from 6 to 14. Cairns were popping up all over the place and despite the huge presence of wiggly little bodies haphazardly walking between my precariously built cairns, not a single one was knocked over.  Not one. 

I was completely dumbfounded.  Not only had the number of kids shot up to epic cairn-building proportions but there were several parents looking on and one parent had actually joined in on the fun. She told me later that she had been watching me try to balance a rock on its edge and couldn’t fathom how I would get it to stay there and when I did, she knew she had to get in and try it too.  Yay!!  At this point my heart was exploding with delight as I stood back and watched the scene unfold.  Kids were building all over the place.  They were helping each other and encouraging each other and laughing together when their work would fall.  They helped each other rebuild.  Everyone was so focused and they were enjoying themselves so much that I couldn’t help but shake my head and smile in amazement.

 

The oldest girl of the bunch had built a tall cairn with large rocks.  I was so completely impressed with her determination to rebuild after her beautiful cairn repeatedly fell.  The countdown was on though…it was almost time for them to leave.  “I must finish it!” she belted out.  It fell again.  One last go at it and with the clock ticking…wouldn’t you know…the Force was strong in her just then because every rock held on tight.  Despite our suggestions not to push the envelope, push it she did with two small rocks to the top and she came out victorious.  The beaming look of pride and accomplishment on that girl’s face was enough to carry me through to next month!

It turns out the kids were from a local children’s home and the parent I had struck up a conversation with was their House Parent.  They were there celebrating the 8^th birthday of one of the kids with a late evening trip to the park.  Looking at how the whole interaction happened and how both of us had arrived late, I can’t help but think we were somehow guided to be there and that we will each leave a lasting mark on the other.  The House Parent commented to me that she won’t be able to get in a creek ever again without playing with the rocks.  That is the best thing I have heard all week!  Earlier, she had also said in a loud exclamation, that I had inspired the whole lot of them, but the truth is, they’re the ones that inspired me…and that field full of cairns is exactly what I got.  That and a warm fuzzy feeling. :)

Me and Johnny

Johnny and Me at age 6 or 7

When I was a kid, I loved to play with my many stuffed animals.  They all had names and jobs and homes complete with beds.  They went to school and came home with report cards.  There was Theodore, my most prized possession (that I still have),

Teddy the Bear, Ogilbee the Monkey, Snuffy the Monchichi, and Panda the Panda, just to name the ones that I can remember.  My best friend, Johnny and I would play “School” or “House” with these animals for hours and when we got bored the conversation sounded like this: “what do you want to do?”,  “I don’t know, what do you want to do?”,  “I don’t know, what do you want to do?”.  We’d go back and forth like that until we actually got bored enough that we just found something else to do and it was almost always outside.  Sometimes it was playing in my “yard”…if you could call it a yard.  Mostly my yard was a wood pile of cut logs to operate our wood burning stove.  It covered a HUGE chunk of space…If I had to guess I would say it was 8 feet wide by 40 or 50 feet long and 4 feet high.  As kids, we didn’t so much care really, as it became something else to play on...we even had races on it!  My yard was cool because there was this hidden spot beside the garage and next to the enormous wood pile that became the place where we built forts and clubhouses. We “borrowed” tools and wood from my dad's shop and found scraps in dumpsters with which several rooms and forts got built.  Our imaginations ran wild and we had elaborate pretend games where we became any number of people and took up any number of roles.  Sometimes it was pirates, sometimes it was astronauts, sometimes it was aliens, sometimes it was just regular people with regular jobs.  We had a rope swing as well and would swing between the fort and the wood pile before moving on to something else...like bikes!  Johnny and I would spend hours riding bikes, but not just ride them, pretend while riding them.  At my house, we played “Bank”.  There was a tree on Second Street, right beside my house that became the Bank.  We would ride around until one of us needed some money and the other would jump off a moving bicycle to operate said Bank.  It involved the exchange of some leaves or rocks or sticks standing in for money and when we were done, we would jump back on our bikes and be on our merry way.  At Johnny’s house, 7 houses down from mine, the game was similar only there we played “Gas Station”.  At his house we had the added benefit of an older sister who would sometimes play with us, until she got too cool for us, that is...and a few years later a younger sister.  Playing as a trio was waaaay better because two kids could be riding bikes and one operating the Station…the front stoop of their house.  Occasionally other neighborhood children would play too giving the Station lots of business and the attendant would always respond enthusiastically to the “fill ‘er up regular” request, pouring water from a watering can onto the back tire of the bike.  When we tired of bikes, there was the fabulous “Diggin’ Spot” at Johnny’s house.  This was a bare patch of dirt underneath an overgrown bush that was big enough to be called “The Climbin’ Tree”.  There in the Diggin' Spot we would use a push broom and create roads all over the dirt to drive Johnny's big, metal, yellow Tonka Trucks.  In the Diggin’ Spot, there was some sort of weird universe where both Tonka Trucks and Matchbox Cars peacefully co-existed and were operated by invisible drivers.  We would build miniature houses out of sticks and rocks and whatever else we could find and no house was complete without a stone walkway from driveway to front door and a dugout swimming pool…a small hole in the dirt.  The cars and trucks would leave their homes each “day” and drive around the intricate web of push-broom roads until it was time to go home, usually just a few minutes time.  Sometimes the Diggin’ Spot was actually used for digging…to China typically.  We never got there...we always hit water first.  We lived close enough to the South Shore of Long Island that just a foot or two down and water would fill the hole.  That was just fine with us…something else to play in and something to strive for…diggin’ for water replaced diggin for China.  The Climbin’ Tree was another endless source of entertainment.  We would climb to the highest branches and practice our monkey skills and from the lower branches, our jumping down skills.  We could climb up and keep watch on the neighborhood, my personal favorite.  For whatever reason, Johnny had this irrational fear of these big, mystical creatures he called “Teenagers”.  They would peruse the neighborhood on foot, and apparently in Johnny’s mind search out the younger kids to “beat up” although they never did.  Whenever they made their way down Smith Avenue, he could intuitively sense it and we would quickly retreat to the heights of the Climbin’ Tree or the House, whichever was closer at the time.  We would wait for them to pass by and we’d come out unscathed but a little shaken.  On the other side of Johnny’s yard was another overgrown bush…a mulberry bush.  At some point in the year it would be bursting with red berries.  We would climb it and later come down with faces and fingers stained purple and our dinners ruined.  At another neighborhood house we played SPUD and Tag and made up games reminiscent of CalvinBall from Watterson's famed strip.  It was play like this that inevitably made Johnny’s mom and later the older sister say, “You smell like the ‘outdoors!’”.  Ahhh…exactly as we liked it.  From these games we learned to problem solve, we learned social skills, we learned how to resolve our own conflicts.  We learned about life.

In Disney World...I think we were 10

And then something happened.  One year for Christmas, Johnny got a Nintendo Game System and my family got a computer.  It was all the rage.  Increasingly our hours were spent in front of the TV or computer screen, mindlessly hunting King Koopa or skillfully placing Tetris blocks with no other movement than the flick of a couple of thumbs.  Somehow we knew we were robbing ourselves of important play but we and everyone else we knew justified it with statements like “we're developing ‘hand-eye coordination'”.  We still played outside but not as much as the allure of the video game was far too great. 

Fast-forward to 2013 where all too often I encounter young children of the Video Game Age who seemingly possess little to no imagination skills.  Their toys are largely unplayed with.  They don’t know what to do with a set of blocks.  They have little concept of art supplies.  They make up few or no pretend games.  They simply don’t know how to play.  “How can that be?...play comes naturally” I hear people say.  Well, to that I would say that is does come naturally to children who have been allowed to or forced to be bored, as Johnny and I were when we were little.  But for children who have been saved from boredom and lazily entertained, essentially being raised on bright and flashy electronic games, I would say these children have been stripped of essential social skills that can only come from honest, imagination-driven play with other kids.  “Well I only let my child play ‘educational’ games”.  Really?  So we have gone from “hand-eye coordination” to “but it’s educational” to justify the behavior.  And it’s not just kids…people are letting their infants play on their smart phones and tablets and laptops and child-oriented game systems.  Seriously?  Do you realize what you’re doing?  At least Johnny and I had a chance to learn to play before video games ruled the world.  Many, if not most kids today never seem to get that chance.  You know how the smart phone numbs you out…it does me.  I am guilty as charged...think about what it's really doing to your kids.  The education you’re inevitably giving your children is a numbing LACK of being a free-thinking, well-adjusted and creative individual...but they WILL know their letters and numbers!  And of course they'll know how to operate electronics!  There have been extensive studies on this but people still turn a blind eye.  Uninhibited play is SO important...Your child's very childhood depends on it...they must be given room to breathe, room to scrape their knees.  I know…it’s not safe anymore, right?  But was it ever really safe?  Make them put down the phone.  Get them to turn off the PlayStation.  Send them outside.  Give them trucks and rocks and a mud puddle. If they tell you they are bored and they want to come in, wait them out.  WAIT THEM OUT! Give them time to find something else to do and hopefully they will get their hands dirty and come in smelling of the outdoors. It's good for them...and you!  It works for adults too...go out and play!!

  

Johnny turns 5

Me and Johnny and his little sister, Lizzie...we were 9 or 10, I think she was probably 3

The Coolest Piece of Asheville History You've Ever Heard

I am not especially interested in war. At. All. BUT...this is pretty darn cool, mostly because it’s local history and ILOVE local history. I suppose this would have been better suited to be shared on July 4^th...so I am 5 days late. Memorial Day would have been even better. Six weeks late. Oh well. Anyway, here goes. The Memphis Belle, a famous B-17, WWII bomber and subject of a 1992 movie, was the first to complete 25 missions against Nazi forces. The cool part about that is that the pilot, Colonel Robert K. Morgan was from right here in Asheville, NC, The town I love to call home.

 

1992 Movie Poster

The really cool details don’t end there...Colonel Morgan named his plane, The Memphis Belle after his girlfriend at the time, Margaret Polk who lived in Memphis, TN. Originally wanting to call the plane Little One after his pet name for her, he changed his mind after he and his co-pilot saw a movie called Lady For a Night. They changed the name to Memphis Belle after the lead character’s riverboat with the same name, figuring it would make a good name for a plane. That detail would later prove a really good idea. They got up with artist George Petty who designed pin-up girls for Esquire Magazine and had him design the nose art. Another artist, Tony Starcer, painted the design onto the plane. He painted "Belle" in a blue swimsuit for the left side and a red suit for the right. The art work was later joined by 25 bomb shapes, one for each mission completed and 8 Swastikas, one for each Nazi plane the Memphis Belle shot down.

Left side nose art. Note the bombs and Swastikas on the right.

 

Nose art on the right side

 Apparently the ”first to complete 25-missions detail” is cloudy. Supposedly there is likely another plane who hit the milestone first but that plane, flying with a group called Hell’s Angels wasn’t named after a hottie in Tennessee, and wanting to boost morale, Washington gave The Memphis Belle the credit. So the name prevails! And deservedly so since the Hell’s Angels plane had lost most of its crew during combat and the Memphis Belle’s 10-man crew did not lose a single man and did not incur a single major injury. Among an 80% shoot-down rate, that is pretty stinkin’ cool!

The best part of the story, I thinkis yet to come but to set the stage, I will tell you about an incident in Florida. According to Morgan, he had been patrolling the shores of St. Petersburg Beach and out in the gulf on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. He spotted a big party down on the beach and took his plane down for a look. At 500 feet off the shore it wasn’t close enough to adequately see the party so he flew even lower without a care or a thought about it. The next morning he reported for duty and upon arrival, was sent straight to the General’s office. With an angry and very stern look, General Olds looked at Morgan and said “were you flying a Lockheed Hudson number so-and-so yesterday afternoon? Yes, sir. Did you happen to buzz a cocktail party that I was at? I didn't know you were at it, sir.” Apparently General Olds was not pleased and said “you know, I'd kick you out of the Army Air Corps right now if we hadn't spent so much money on you. I hear you're a pretty damn good pilot, so we'll let you stay in. But I'm going to tell you this, if I had my way, you'd be the oldest second lieutenant in the Army Air Corps."So I guess this Robert K. Morgan was a real character.I am not surprised.Most people from Asheville are real characters.

So because The Memphis Belle had earned the honor of being the first plane to complete 25 missions it was sent on a victory tour of sorts across the country to boost morale among Americans.General Henry “Hap” Arnold, the only 5 Star General in the Air Force gave Morgan permission to fly as low as he liked, knowing what a solid pilot he was. Morgan may have taken that a bit too literally. While visiting his hometown of Asheville, for a special event, he told his co-pilot that he wanted to buzz up over the mountain to give folks a goodbye salute”. He took the plane east down Patton Ave and right into downtown headed straight for Asheville City Hall and the Buncombe County Courthouse. The buildings are 50 feet apart at the bottom and 74 feet apart at the top and the plane has a wingspan of 103.9 feet…definitely not going to fit. About to crash into city hall, he banked the left side of the plane 60 degrees and flew between the buildings with perfect precision. At the time the city hall housed an AAC weather detachment whose commanding officer complained immediately to the Pentagon but was “advised by a duty officer that ‘Major Morgan has been given permission to buzz by General Henry Arnold.’” Supposedly people on the ground claimed the pilot of the plane “ought to be court-martialed”. Nah...this guy’s too cool for that!

Buncombe County Court House on the left, Asheville City Hall, being renovated on the right taken 7/7/13

Colonel Robert K. Morgan maintained a pilot’s license right up until his death. After flying home from an air show in Lakeland, Florida at the age of 85, Morgan slipped and fell at the Asheville Regional Airport and fractured one of his vertebrae. He spent the next several weeks at Mission Hospital in Asheville and died from complications from his injuries, including pneumonia on May 15^th, 2004. His ashes are buried at the Western Carolina Veterans Cemetery in Black Mountain, North Carolina.

The Memphis Belle itself had a rough life following its wartime honors. Nearly destroyed by vandals, it was restored to its full glory and is now on permanent display on Mud Island in Memphis.

The Final Resting Place on Mud Island, Memphis, TN

The other cool thing about this story is that I gave a copy of Colonel Morgan’s book, The Man Who Flew the Memphis Belle to my dad a bunch of years ago. He loved it and called Mr. Morgan shortly before he died and told him how much he enjoyed his book. I think that is the coolest thing ever.

A Rainy Gray Day

Mommy.  Mom.  Mama.  Ma.  These are titles that I get called fairly frequently, and yet, I am not any of them…at least not to an English-speaking human child.  The only child I have is furry and speaks Barkish and only when he's bugged about something.   I get called these titles because I like to borrow other people's children and they  tend to forget who they're talking to at least once per visit. Spending the day with a young kiddo nourishes my Inner Child tendencies so I jump at any chance I get to babysit.  I love the utter foolishness and ridiculous behavior that comes with spending time with little kids…such a bummer that so many people seem to miss this opportunity.  Maybe if the kids were mine I would find it hard to have the energy for it too…but someone’s gotta have them.  I've never been one to accept a sitting gig and then actually just sit on the couch and talk on the phone as is often the image the media paints. I guess there are high school or college-aged sitters who might do this who perpetuate the image.  Those people should not be hired to watch your children.  I wasn’t your typical phone-talking, boy-crazy teen so even as a teenager, I never did that.  Generally speaking, I arrive on the job with some combination of a planned outing, art or baking project, game, toy or puzzle.  Sometimes I bring nothing and let the child show me his or her toys and direct what we do.  Both methods have value but I do gravitate to bringing some part of my babysitting arsenal.  I am not really sure what all the kid or kids get out of our time together, I am sure it’s something good but I'm willing to bet I get the better end of the bargain in getting to spend the day or evening with them. Yesterday, I was thrilled to have Gray, My Favorite 5 Year Old Boy for the day.   When talking to little kids, I tend to play dumb a lot.  It makes for much more interesting conversation.  My day with Gray, started off with this one over breakfast:

Gray: I wike vampires..
Me: What’s a vampire?
G: Vampires bite your neck and suck your bwood.
Me: Oh? What's bwood?
G: It's this wed stuff in your bwain and it switters wike a snake inside you. (He puts hands together and waves them like the slithering snake he is describing)  And it's in big chunks in your bwain and it goes down , down, down to your heart and your heart pounds it up and bweaks it into wittiwer pieces and then, (now rubbing his whole body down with his hands)  it goes wherever it wants in the wittle pieces.
Me: Pizzas? What kind of pizza? I like pizza
G: no, NO! PIECES, not PIZZA!!!! And bones cover up your bwood so it can't come out.
Me: hmmm, ya think so? Well not quite...sort of. Your skin covers your blood so it can't come out and your muscles and your bones hide in there too.
G: but there's bwood in my bones
Me: Yes there is.  It’s called bone marrow, but it just sort of stays there and doesn't slither around like the rest of your blood does.
G: oh...I can feel mines bone!! ( Tapping on his own ankle.)
Me: That's a bone? Are you sure it's not a rock? I think it's a rock. (now also tapping on his ankle to determine whether there is a rock inside him)  Yup!  It’s a rock!
G: No!!! Wocks awen't inside you, cause you can't eat wocks!
Me: Oh. Siwwy me.

The weather had been really nasty for several days and no doubt kids everywhere have been cooped up for too long. Our rainy day options that I had planned in my head were painting and making homemade play dough but being warm out, I decided it best to just go play in the rain despite the wetness and gloom.  That would release some 5 year old energy rather than increase the couped-upedness that leads to temper tantrums. A little warm rain and mud never hurt anyone, in fact it's probably right up there with cairn building and sand sculpting as a means for some sort of spiritual connectedness. Donning previously wet shoes and jacket, Gray and I hit the park. We had to drive around road closure barricades that were put up the night before on Azalea Rd when the Swannanoa River jumped its banks again from all the torrential rain. We were not the only car to do this and I could the see that the river had receded enough so proceed we did. The rain came down pretty steadily much to Jake's dismay but Gray and I didn't care. We had the entire dog park to ourselves...granted in was one enormous grassy puddle, but that was part of the fun. We got busy stomping the puddles and making big splashes. The bigger the splash, the better it was.  Our shoes got soaked. Our clothes got soaked. We got very muddy.  Oh well. That's what laundry soap is for, right? We spun around until we got dizzy and then I turned on some music on my iPhone and we danced in the pouring rain. My 3-day post-surgical screw removal from my ankle was a bit sore so I went to sit.  Gray romped around the whole park while the rain tried to decide what it wanted to do, dump or drizzle. After a few minutes or so he began to whine that he wanted to visit his mommy at her job.  I told him I wasn't ready to leave yet and I questioned him about how he would find a way to get there by himself. Whine. More whine. WHINE! This might be where some people would pull out the wine but I just uncorked my own bottle of whine and gave it back to him. The louder he whined the louder I did too. He screamed. I screamed. He yelled. I yelled. He got louder. I got louder. He laughed. I laughed. Wait, laughing…that wasn’t supposed to happen.  He realized he was laughing and got annoyed that he just got duped.  He started to whine again. We went through this cycle about 5 or 6 times, each time getting louder and louder and more and more laughter took over, Gray laughing in spite of himself. Another woman arrived at the park with her two dogs and we kept right on whining and screaming and yelling and laughing and getting louder. Eventually her two dogs distracted Gray just enough to make him forget the game we were playing and off he ran to introduce himself to her dogs. We resumed puddle jumping and he posed for pictures. Being the huge ham that he is he seemed to enjoy showing off his booty shake which in typical 5 year old fashion did not come without fart humor. In my typical Overgrown 10 Year Old fashion, I willingly obliged and we spent another 5 minutes making fart noises and laughing hysterically.

 

 

On the way out of the park we stopped and overlooked the little foot bridge where for months I watched a group of tadpoles develop into tiny froggies. Now there is just mud and algae under the bridge and what is normally a mostly stagnant trickle becomes a full-on creek in heavy rain.
G: what's that swime?
Me: swine? Like pigs? I don't see any pigs around here, do you? There's no way you know what 'swine' means.
G: NO!!! Swime!!! SWIME!!! That gween stuff.
Me: ohhhhhh, SLIME!! That's algae. Some people eat it. Shall we collect some for lunch? Ooh there's a worm too. You hungry?
G: ewww. Yuck. Ooh, that worm is wiggewey. Wets go find some more!

 

The rest of the day fell into a more traditional grown-up / child relationship when I had to discipline him for a poor choice made at Starbucks, insist on a bath with soap before any lunch be consumed and then enforcing quiet rest time.  During quiet time, which in Gray’s World isn’t really quiet but at least it’s in bedroom with the door closed, I reflected on the day.  I thought of The Sound of Music and how the Von Trapp kids weren’t allowed to play, ever.  Maria makes them play clothes and takes them to romp all over Austria and they turn out to be better kids because of it.  I LOVE that movie and I realized that is one of the reasons why.  Maybe that's what they get out of me...I am part Maria and give them an experience that they maybe wouldn’t otherwise have for whatever reason.  Kids need to play.  They need to get dirty.  They need to climb trees and get scraped knees.  They need to hunt down worms and build forts and make dams in the stream.  They need to play outside everyday in every weather.  That’s how they learn.  That’s how they grow.  I have found that some children actually don’t know how to play.  It sounds crazy, I know, but contrary to popular belief, it’s not something they are born knowing how to do.  It’s not that it needs to be taught per se, it just needs to be encouraged and insisting that a kid be still or even allowing a kid to sit in front of the TV or video games for hours on end does nothing to encourage that.  That’s not to say that a quick window of TV time is bad.  It can be a much needed reprieve but letting them get bored is essential to growth…but so many parents won’t let their kids just be.  How many kids do you know who don’t know how to entertain themselves?  A lack of unstructured and uninterrupted play, I would put $1000 on is the culprit.