Someone wise recently told me that truth is a relative thing colored by our memories and experiences. This is a true story, or at least some of it is true and some of it has been retold so many times with a little color, that I'm not sure any longer what is truth and what is color.
When I was about a real youngster, my cousins and I wanted to go to the mountains to camp out. Mother had a lot going on and so did Aunt Laura Mitchell, but they put their heads together and came up with a scheme that would allow them to accomplish the things they needed to do and would also offer us the opportunity for a little mountain adventure with a minimum amount of risk. Mom was to take us to the mountains and leave us with camping gear and enough food for two weeks. Aunt Laura was to come and pick us up at the end of the adventure and take us home.
Mom took us to Aspen Glade which was a free camping ground at that time. We found a good camping site near the Conejos River in a small grove of trees and Mom left us with a hug and a kiss. I don't think she even looked back as she disappeared in a cloud of dust as she drove away and left us for our boyish conquest.
The freedom was wonderful. With no parents to tell us what to do and what not to do, we proceeded to do some things that would have gotten us a good licking had Dad known what we were doing. Mitch and Mike and Donnie and I took the air mattresses from the sleeping bags and headed for the top end of the campground. We swam and played and floated down the river on our air mattresses.
The meals for the first part of the week were not memorable. They were the ordinary hamburgers and hot dogs and potato chips and the such. Later in the week, however, the meals were a little more unforgetabble. As our larder diminished, we began suplementing it with what we could "borrow" from other campers who were not careful with their supplies. I remember one day wanting something more exciting to drink that river water. About all we had left was orange kool aid and Karo Syrup. They make a horrible combination. We searched for wild strawberries. I found one or two, but they were so small they were hardly worth the bother! We were able to find quite lots of wild onions. They were small but really packed a wallop and left a horrible odor behind.
Mitch, Mike and Donnie were all older than I. They were having a ball. It wasn't so fun for me after a while. I was hungry. I was tired. I was homesick. One day, while the three of them were of doing boy things, I went for a walk downriver to the ranger station. I tried to be brave and was going to tell the ranger that I wanted to call my Mom to come get us. A huge lump formed in my throat, and the tears began to flow.
The ranger was kind and reassured me that all would be OK. There wasn't a way to call home, but he took me back to the campground in his really official looking truck and wearing his official looking uniform. Somehow, that was reassuring to me.
The Parker family was having a reunion that day. The Ranger talked Bud Parker into giving me a ride home and letting my family know that they needed to come and retrieve their abandoned kids.
