Back when I was a girl, my grandparents were good solid hill people, with solid ideas about right and wrong and what was proper and what wasn’t. My grandpa had fought in World War I and he loved his country. They’d come up to visit us over the Fourth of July weekend. Dad wanted them to see a really good fireworks display while they were here and he’d promised all of us that we’d go camping.
We had a little Go Tagalong Camper, blue and white, and the trips we took in that little thing made for good memories. Now Grandpa had only camped in tents in the war and he wasn’t too enthused about the idea. He thought it might work, but he wasn’t going to sleep in any little tin can like that. He’d be a man and sleep outside. Dad brought along a folding chaise lounge with a mattress pad on it for him.
We went to camp at the Mohican river. Back then you could pull up right next to the river. They have you back in planned out campground lots now, but back then, we had a favorite spot where Dad would park the little trailer with its tail end hanging right over the low bank. He liked to hear the water at night.
We had a campfire, we had supper, and we got ready for bed after we’d taken a nice walk. Mike, my older brother, was sleeping on the picnic table in his new boy scout sleeping bag. Grandpa was sitting on the other side of the fire in the chaise lounge with proper blankets and quilts over him, none of those sleeping bags for him. Mom and Dad were on the side bunk inside, the baby was tucked in a baby sleeper close to them, Cindy (my little sister) was in the top bunk, Grandma Bertha, who was sort of short but about as wide as she was tall, slept uneasily on the bottom bunk. I was on the floor, as usual. I always seemed to end up on the floor where ever we went, be it a relative’s house, a hotel, or camping. I had the floor.
Anyway, Grandma couldn’t seem to get comfortable, she kept tossing and turning.
Now the little Go Tagalong was not built like a tank. Underneath, holding that little bunk up, were two 2 x 2’s, cantilevered into the storage space under the bed, which right now was empty. Grandma sighed and flounced and turned and did it one too many times.
Mom and Dad, the baby and the rest of us were asleep. But when Grandma gave one more toss and turn, those 2 x 2’s gave out and the bunk collapsed into the storage compartment, which, being unlocked, opened and dropped Grandma over the water and into the river, which at 1 am, was feeling pretty cold.
Grandma could shriek like a banshee. And she did. That started a whole bunch of chain reactions.
It woke up Dad who jumped up, crawled over Mom, and fell on me. I screamed, which made Cindy start screaming and woke up the baby (Tiny) who started screaming. Mike, woken up from a sound sleep, tried to get out of his sleeping bag and only succeeded in falling off the picnic table. Dad got outside just in time for Grandpa to fire his shotgun – we didn’t even know he had it with him – straight up in the air over the river, over and under barrels one right after the other, ‘cause he thought we were being attacked by Hessians. Have you ever heard a double barrel shotgun shot over a river at midnight? The park ranges thought someone had sneaked in fireworks. Just down from us was a boy scout troop, twenty-five or so little boys who all ran to try and help in their BVD’s and tees, with their scoutmaster telling them all to come back right now – sort of like a flock of scared guineas.
The park rangers showed up shortly thereafter and it is the first and only time we got kicked out of a campgrounds.
We still took Grandpa to see fireworks the next night. Grandma did not catch cold.
However, they never went camping with us again.