Stories from an Old Man (Pt. 1)

I may not be old yet, but I'm probably getting there. When I was a young man, I enjoyed the challenge of talking up a story and stretching and bending the facts to see how crazy I could make it, while still making things believable. Eventually, reality caught up with me and I realized that I don't have to stretch or bend the truth. Life is full enough of good stories, perfect as they happen.

Now, I pass these stories on to my kids - things I've seen, things I've done, places I've gone. They aren't particularly impressive, but they are entertaining. And here for you, dear reader, I will share some of my favorites, beginning with the "Visitor Under the Stars."

After college, as I was drifting around in search of my calling, a close friend got me to join the volunteer fire department. This was a typical, small-city department, full of old men who wanted to be in charge, young kids who wanted to be heroes, and a few others mixed in who just wanted to contribute good things. After I had been there some months, I had started hanging out together with a small group. The group was heavy on the hero types, with a couple of guys who worked out and trained daily, hoping to one day become career firefighters.

One weekend, the group of us decided to go camping. Of course, we meant to go drinking, but the tents and forest turned it into a camping trip. There were five of us who traveled deep into a national forest - all of us small-city, suburban kids, no older than twenty-five. We found a camp site we had used before, a wide clearing about a mile into the trees on a dirt road. Although there aren't many truly remote places in Wisconsin, we were probably no closer than a few miles from the nearest people. We set up the site and, as we had intended, started drinking.

The interesting thing about Wisconsin is that everything we have here is tame. It isn't like you can reach out and pet the wildlife, but there aren't too many animals that you really need to fear. There are ticks and mosquitoes and annoying bugs, but unless you are much farther north than we were (where you might find a black bear), nothing will really eat you other than in very small bites.

Now, of the group, it turned out that I was the more experienced camper. I had never gone hardcore camping before, but I had camped out at tent sites in the Smokey Mountains, I had foraged for firewood, and I had slept out under the stars staring at the night sky. The night was beautiful, and I announced that I wouldn't need my tent - I was going to sleep again under the stars, next to the campfire.

Somehow, this was a fascinating idea to the others. As I set up my sleeping bag, I heard a million questions. Is it safe? Can you do that? What about animals? Are you crazy? Why would you do that? As the other hero-driven firefighters retreated to their tents, only Brandon - an eighteen-year old kid who was new to all of us - decided to give it a try. "I've never slept under the stars, this sounds awesome!"

On the other side of the fire, Brandon set up his own sleeping bag. He was very excited by this new adventure. We chatted a little, and decided to get some sleep. I threw my sleeping bag over my head to keep the bugs away, and put a flashlight next to me inside of the sleeping bag, easily within reach.

As I began to doze off, in what could have been minutes or could have been an hour, the sound of Brandon calling in a frightened, half-whisper sharply woke me. "Rik! Rik!! RIK!!!"

Groggy and confused, I grabbed my flashlight and flipped open my sleeping bag to see what had Brandon all stirred up. It was very, very dark as the fire had died down to embers. I lit the light and aimed it over at Brandon.

Brandon was half-laying, half-sitting on his sleeping bag. His eyes were shockingly wide. And in front of him, not an inch away, he was nose-to-nose with a porcupine. As Brandon managed to stay outwardly still, the curious creature looked over at me with the flashlight, looked back at Brandon's face, and calmly turned and ambled back into the woods - almost shrugging as he left. Curiosity satisfied, the porcupine was done with us.

The other guys could hear everything happening, but had no idea what was going on until we told them. Truly scared by the word porcupine, they announced that they would not leave their tents until light. Heroes indeed. Brandon ended up stoking the fire again - he wasn't going to sleep the rest of the night. After about fifteen minutes of laughter at our visitor's incredibly calm demeanor and the rest of the guys' terror, I finally flipped my sleeping bag back over my head and enjoyed the rest of the night under the stars.