It happens twice a summer whether I want it to or not. It’s usually in July or August and it always involves a campground. 50 of us haul out our tents, trailers, or RVs, and make like the children of Israel in the wilderness. That’s when the insults start. And that’s when it pays to laugh.
The insults start with my little utility trailer hitched to a jalopy that should have been abandoned after college. While my brothers hum along with their campers, pick-ups, and fifth-wheelers, I stack my four-by-four, twowheeled miniature hauler, seven feet high, smother it with a metallicblue tarp, wrestle it down with fifty feet of yellow rope and orange bungee cords, and then pile my bikes on top of that.
It’s a wonder the two-foot tires on the “space-ship” don’t burn out on the journey. [Truth is, the axle did seize up and weld solid once. I learned the secret of grease after that].
Every generation has its own little insult to share, usually in the form of a story. Once I finally chug into the first stop for lunch, the grands (who are usually almost finished eating) begin sharing how many burgers I eat a week. They compare my burger belly to Mr. Wilson on Dennis the Menace and branch out from there. For some reason, the strict laws around respecting your elders slack off during holidays and I understand that it pays to laugh.
My siblings and cousins save their first insults for the inevitable story-time around the campfire each evening. It may be that I’m the oldest and therefore fair game for exaggerating the incompetencies of the past.
There are insults around my challenges at putting up a tent and the inevitable tarps that I tie overtop. It isn’t my fault I can’t understand diagrams where the writing is in German, Spanish, Korean, Japanese, and Arabic. Every year, setting up a nylon dome with numerous colored poles is a complete mystery. Even if my granddaughter did it for me the previous summer. Others are down at the lake while I’m still sweating. There are special insults that come with this incompetency.
There’s the story of the 50’x50’ white trucker’s tarp that I hoisted over my tent like a sail between four tall trees. People drove from all over to see the wonder and some dared to insult my work of art, suspended ten feet above my domicile. A waterfall from the sky that night left me smiling for a while. At two o’clock a deep sense of dread filled me as the top of the tent seemed to shrink. Crawling out into the monsoon let me realize that the rain had formed an Olympic size pool over my abode. The tarp was beginning to tear away from the ropes holding it. Slashing away one rope left a river streaming through the other tents. Insults couldn’t be counted after that one.
Insults continued around my inability to hike, to navigate through clear trails, to attract raccoons and bears due to unsecured food, and my tendencies to forget essential camping items (despite my lists).
The biggest insult came when I donned my shorts twice during camping week. Family members delighted in shrinking back in horror at “the blinding lighthouse,” “Casper unleashed,” “the abominable snowman,” and other epitaphs too numerous to enunciate.
But each evening, after dinner, we took time for devotions and singing. The insults were shelved. I remember the time I opened to John 1:43-46 and read about Jesus calling Philip to follow him and then Philip spoke to Nathanael about Jesus of Nazareth. “’Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?’ Nathanael asked.”
“How do you think Jesus felt about being insulted like this?” I asked. “How would you feel if someone found out about the place, the family, the school, that you came from and asked, ‘can anything good come from there?’ How would you respond?”
My youngest granddaughter walked over to me, fists on her hips. “I think he’d laugh like you do. People who insult others like that aren’t smart enough to know better. And Jesus would love them anyway because he knows when we’re trying to be mean, when we don’t understand that it hurts, and when we’re trying to say that we love you for sharing so many memories with us.”
“Why thank you sweetie,” I said.
After prayers, that same granddaughter sidled up to me. “Gramps, thanks for wearing jeans at night so we can sleep.”