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My dad was in the Boy Scouts and the U.S. Army, so by the time I came along he’d done enough camping for one lifetime. To this day, the closest dad comes to “roughing it” is staying at a Courtyard by Marriott. And so, aside from a couple of grade school summers when my folks let me “camp” in a tent in the backyard, I managed to reach adulthood without camping before.

By the late 1980s, most Georgians who knew about Cumberland Island learned about it from local shows like PM Magazine or local TV sign-offs. Atlanta’s public TV station, WGTV, in particular had a sign-off which featured scenic scenes from around the state set to Ray Charles’ version of “Georgia on My Mind”. The once grand old homes, the wild horses and the beautiful, unspoiled beaches of Cumberland Island featured prominently in the sign-off, and so one day, in late 1990, I got the idea to go to there.

Of course, this was a lot more difficult then than it would be today. I had to send a letter to the National Park Service, who is in charge of the island. In return they sent me a form to fill out, which I returned. Several weeks later, I received passes which would allow me and two friends to spend no more than 72 hours on the island on Memorial Day weekend 1991 (it’s a nature preserve, so access is strictly limited). I went to the Georgia State University library to find a phone book for St. Mary’s, the town closest to Cumberland. I saw a hotel I liked and made reservations. Almost everything was done except the waiting.

As the date approached, I spent around $400 on a tent, ground cloth, sleeping bag, a nice flashlight\lamp combo, a camping stove, fuel, plates and flatware, an armful of dehydrated camping dinners, water purification tablets, a 5 gallon collapsible water jug, eco-friendly toilet paper, cans of insect repellent, a sweet Swiss Army knife, and a giant backpack to put all that crap in. Oh, and I got a shiny new pair of Doc Martens, too. I considered them “necessary camping supplies”, you see. And, to round out the ensemble, I had an of-age friend get me a bottle of tequila, since I was only 20 at the time.

Continue reading “My One Camping Trip”

Here’s a list of random things people said on the Internet last week. Explanations available after the jump. Note that all grammar – spelling, punctuation, etc. – are copied verbatim from the original.

Let me know if you like this, and I’ll see about making it a regular feature!

– “The family I’m living with here in Thailand – nobody eats beef. I asked why, and they say ‘it tastes like cow’. I have no idea what that means.”

– “Well that was a really long-winded way of saying ‘look, everyone, someone who doesn’t understand marginal cost’.”

– “It’s like there are two universes here. Ours where we don’t ruin rib-eyes, and the other where Spock has a beard.”

– “So this is the car JFK was assassinated in? Let me call a buddy of mine who’s an expert on cars JFK was assassinated in.”

– “I can’t stream porn because Xbox live is taking all the Internet. I thought having a male roommate would make life easier”

– “Michio Kaku, the Al Sharpton of physics.”

– “imagine the sandwich you would get afterwards…”

– “I hate Bono but i assume the rest of Ireland is great.”

– “Really, dude? You liked chocolate as a kid? That’s amazing. And you still like it now? Gosh, you must really like chocolate. It’s so rare these days to hear of someone loving chocolate as a kid AND still liking it well into their adulthood. It’s a good thing you found this flowing chocolate slurry at Golden Corral so you can partake in this lifelong passion of yours unencumbered and free.”

– “At 20, he attempted suicide-by-jaguar. Afterward he was apprenticed to a pirate. To please his mother, who did not take kindly to his being a pirate, he briefly managed a mink farm, one of the few truly dull entries on his otherwise crackling résumé, which lately included a career as a professional gambler.”

Continue reading “Stuff People Said”