The camper. This one surprises me, because although my family camped a lot, most of what I remember took place in the trailer–which, although still modest, was much nicer and larger and more accommodating.
The old camper still sits in my parents’ yard next to the shed. It’s too old and run-down to really sell–the frame dented in places, paint peeling, brown leather seats ripped, cupboard latches stuck–but I’m not sure why they keep it. I don’t know when it was made or remember where it came from, but it might have been a hand-me-down from my grandparents. The wood looked cheap–not-quite-honey-colored; the walls were canvas, the floor fake marble, the curtains retro checkered-green. Everything else was brown, including the tiny refrigerator–which had a lock made out of a screw that simply dropped through a hole in a metal loop (something that fascinated me as a child). It was the only thing I could easily open and close, and I felt the need to lock it–maybe as a retaliation, because at that age the cupboard latches already stuck–and everything was latched.
As a child I remember our camping trips feeling more foreign, even though most of them probably took place at Fraser Lake, B.C., not that far from where I lived. We always spent much more time outside the camper, in the water (often trying to wrestle in the dog, who couldn’t stand it), around the fire pit, looking for agates in the sand to fill the bear-shaped peanut butter jar which probably contained more sanded glass and translucent rocks than anything else. I remember once, though, parking the truck (camper fit snugly on the back) next to a large cabin out in the middle of nowhere, ready for visitors and equipped with nothing but a board game involving either elephants or hippos, and parachutes or other floating devices. And I will never forget Germansen Lake, where the “outhouse” was made of boards, a hole, and dirty curtains, where the water was far too cold to swim in, where we were isolated from humankind and the rain came in torrents for seven days straight. Never would I develop a more intimate relationship with that camper.
(This is unfinished. Have much more to say.)
