Camping Out

Ellie and Donny went camping upstate this weekend. Ellie’s also has climbed mountains and done some rappelling. I don’t know from where she got this outdoors gene. Neither Gilda nor I could be considered the camping-out, outdoorsy type.

During her high school years Ellie and her friend Danielle decided they’d go camping at Bear Mountain. I wasn’t too keen on two teenage girls going alone but I really wasn’t in a position to ground them. Nor was I in a position to offer advice. Not that I didn’t try, but you know how teenagers, particularly teenage girls, are. They didn’t want to hear any of my suggestions.

I did, however, offer a cautionary note when I overheard Danielle say she would use a bag of marshmallows as a pillow. Whoa, I said. That would not be a good idea. Were you not aware that bears are attracted to food? The last place you want to have your head resting is on a bag of bear-enticing marshmallows. 

A few years later Dan and Ellie decided to travel cross-country. Dan’s school ended earlier than Ellie’s so he drove her Jeep out West where she would join him. In Sequioa National Park in California, Dan attended a park ranger’s talk when he suddenly bolted from the campfire and headed straight to the Jeep. The park ranger had just finished admonishing campers to leave no food in their cars as bears commonly ripped off doors to get to the the goodies inside. Dan knew he didn’t leave any of his food inside the Jeep but he alertly remembered Ellie had a cornucopia of sweets stashed around the interior. 

Back to Ellie and Danielle. They didn’t encounter any bears but around 9 pm they heard noises in the woods. The noises became voices, no less a reason to be wary. That is, until the voices turned out to be a boy scout troop. It wasn’t quite like Snow White encountering the Seven Dwarfs, but they definitely were calmer knowing the scouts were around.

Getting back to the opening of this blog, I might have left the impression that at least my genes could not possibly have influenced Ellie’s outdoorsmanship. Actually, we have pictures of my mother horseback riding, while my father grew up in a small town in Poland where he was part of a Jewish scouting organization. Maybe the gene skipped a generation (I’m fairly certain my brother and sister also lack the outdoorsman gene which resurfaced in Lee’s daughter Lauren. As part of a corporate exercise—she works for North Face—Lauren climbed Half Dome in Yosemite via the cable route, amazing herself as well as her parents with her fortitude). The extent of Gilda’s and my mountain climbing activity has been confined mostly to scaling Masada in Israel four or five times, as well as making our way to the top of some man-made structures such as The Vatican, the Il Duomo in Florence and the Eiffel Tower.

Holiday Inn Is My Idea of Camping Out

The first thing you need to know before reading today's tale of Forseter lore is, I snore. The second thing is, I am nothing if not the antithesis of an outdoorsman. I personify the mostly Jewish joke that camping out to me is a stay at a Holiday Inn.

With that in mind, return with me now to the summer of 1981. Gilda and I were 32, expecting our second child, Ellie, in December. Dan was nearing his third birthday in October. Aside from his allergy to dairy products, he also suffered through occasional bouts of asthma.

Our dear friends Dave and Gemma and their daughter Tash, two months younger than Dan, were avid outdoors people. To this day Gemma rambles across such places as Greenland and Africa. (Dave doesn't ramble anymore, but three decades ago he was a veritable Daniel Boone).

For a reason that still eludes me, Gilda fancied herself a co-religionist of the great outdoors. She conspired with Dave and Gemma to arrange a camping trip to Lake George one weekend. I vehemently resisted, arguing, among other things, that Dan had just recovered from a slight cough. But she threatened to go without me so I caved in.

We traveled north in two cars, arriving at the campsite around 4 pm. We set about pitching our tents. That is, Dave and Gemma did. I mostly watched. We built a fire, prepared dinner and, I must admit, were enjoying ourselves when it started raining around 6:30. We retreated to our respective tents for the rest of the evening.

All night long, Gilda later said, I snored. Indubitably I did. I snore every night. But lost amid my zzzzzs was the wheezing of Dan’s breathing. When we awoke around 6 am, Gilda observed his struggle to take in oxygen. The heavy humid air had triggered an asthma attack. The nearest medical center was 60 miles south in Albany. Leaving Dave and Gemma to pack up our gear, we hurried to our car and raced down the Northway. Not too many people are on the road that early, so speeding was not a problem. I was almost hoping a policeman would stop us so we could go even faster with him as an escort.

At the emergency room the doctor administered an injection. All this time aside, from being lethargic, Dan was quite the happy kid. He didn't complain about getting a shot either. Even when the doctor said he needed a second injection, Dan was cheerful and cooperative. We suspect riding in the air conditioned car ameliorated much of his asthma.

I'd like to relate I didn't say to Gilda I told you so, but I don't recall if I was so forgiving and mature. I suspect I most probably was not, while also insisting we never go camping again any further than our back yard. For the record, Gilda and I haven't. Dan, on the other hand, twice has traveled cross-country, often sleeping under the stars.