On Camping

The first time I went camping was at age 11. It was with the Girl Scouts. I packed a duffle bag and a sleeping bag and got on a yellow school bus for some campgrounds in Upper Westchester.

The walk from the parking lot to the screened in cabins was long. I kept dropping my sleeping bag on the stony trail.

It was so cold that for the three days I was there I wore virtually every article of clothing in my duffle bag. When I woke up from sleeping on my shoddy stained 4 inch mattress in the morning I was wet from the dew. There was no running water so I was grimy and wary of pubescent odor. The bathroom facility was a latrine which I used so infrequently from a deep fear of bacteria and attacking wild animals that I developed a UTI and constipation. The campfire provided no warmth—it only served to make me smell like an ash pit. And the food cooked over the open flame tasted like smoked dirt and char.

No amount of singing Girl Scout songs could elevate the experience.

I could not wait to go home.

The second and final time I went camping was the following year at age 12. It was also with the Girl Scouts. But by then I was a cadet and living in Dobbs Ferry—a much more upscale community with an expected standard of living. Our destination was Philadelphia. I packed a small Wedgewood blue hard shell Samsonite suitcase with flipping metal locks and boarded a coach bus that had a bathroom in the rear.

Upon our arrival to the City of Brotherly Love we toured the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, Betsy Ross’s house, the Philadelphia Zoo and the Franklin Institute. We “camped out” in the Holiday Inn in Centre City. The high rise hotel had 4-party private rooms with hot and cold running water, flushing toilets, electricity, an in-room heating system, a telephone and a 32 inch color Zenith television set with a click-style remote.

We took an elevator to our room and slept in shared double beds with clean white sheets. There was sweet smelling soap and shampoo in the shower. The towels were embossed in green and said Holiday Inn. We ate our meals on white china plates in a banquet room served by waiters and bus boys.

And ever since the age of 12  I have wondered why anyone would ever chose to abandon the basic necessities in life voluntarily. For me outdoor camping was a rather miserable misadventure—one I cared never to repeat. I did not see any fun whatsoever in being a victim of untamed nature and its elements.

And so for the past 40 years if anyone has ever asked me if I enjoyed camping my standard response has always been Yes—if it is the Holiday Inn—or any hotel at least 3 diamonds or greater according to AAA.

And I am quite certain all the inconvenienced or displaced persons from the recent storm would absolutely agree.