Camping With Geezers

Joining a church is not required when you live in a rural area, but you will find that most country folk are affiliated with a church. Obama’s snide comment about people in rural America clinging to their guns and religion is true in that sense―salvation and the Second Amendment are deeply held values in the land of country-fried steak, corn bread and sweet tea. And there’s nothing wrong with that in my book.

There are many reasons aside from faith why church-going is so common among country folk: tradition, association, a sense of belonging, and community to name a few. In many ways it simply is what one does in a small town. For these and some complicated reasons having to do with my conservative beliefs, I joined a church when I moved to Fannin County even though I am weak in the faith department.

Perhaps this will explain how it is that I just returned from a four night camping trip to Fort Mountain State Park with the men’s group of St. Luke’s Anglican Church. To fully appreciate the experience you need to know that the median age of the group is over seventy. They jokingly but truthfully refer to themselves as SLOF―St. Luke’s Old Farts.

To give you an idea of the age of the group, during the planning for the trip there was a serious discussion of whether they should bring an AED in case anyone had a heart attack. Looking around the room, I thought that would be a good idea to have a cardiologist, a medevac helicopter and a MASH unit on close standby also.

The old farts turned out to be experienced campers. All of them brought large tents with cots and folding chairs. They erected awnings over the entrances to their tents and put up canopies and shelters over the eating and seating areas. They strung clothes lines to hang their towels and damp clothes. When they were done the campsite looked like a Bedouin encampment of the Wadi al Geriatric tribe. All they needed was a couple of camels and a few date trees to complete the picture.

I just brought a large tent, an inflatable mattress and a sleeping bag. I may laugh at the geezers, but by day two I was developing a case of tent envy and a bad backache, and they were still scampering around. Okay, scampering is a bit of an overstatement. I’m pretty sure Reagan was President the last time they scampered.

One of the men brought his dog. It may have been the oldest dog I’ve ever seen. I asked him how old the dog was, and he said 80. I thought he was talking in dog years, but now that I think about it I’m not sure. Not only was this dog ancient, but it was also blind, deaf and had a brain tumor. It stayed where you put it. It reminded me of a furry door stop. Now I’m not making fun of the dog’s misfortune, and I understand the bond between master and pet, but I'm fairly certain the dog did not even knew that it was camping.

To top it all off, this dog had a disconcerting habit of falling to sleep instantly and then snoring loudly. Our minister, Father Victor, visited the second morning and gave a little talk. The dog was not impressed and snored through the entire lesson. It went like this:

… Then Moses came to the Promised Land. (Loud snore.) He looked out over it. (Loud snore.) He saw that it was good. (Loud snore.) And he said, “Behold.” (Loud snore.)

Father Victor quickly realized he was sailing against a stiff headwind competing with Wonder Dog and wrapped up his message in short order. Can you give me an amen?

The weather could have been better. We had thunderstorms and rain two of the four days we were there. At one point an assistant to the park ranger came by our campsite and told us there was a violent thunderstorm alert, and if the conditions got too bad, we were to take shelter in the bathrooms. She also told us that this was the first time in 17 years she had been asked to give such a warning.

I had this vision of ten old men trying to run uphill to the safety of the bathroom in an emergency. It would have been the charge of the lame brigade. Fortunately we did not get hail, lightning and high winds, but we did get a couple of hours of heavy rain.

Like every state park I’ve ever camped at, the raccoons were omnipresent and smarter than the average teenager when it came to foraging for food. The little buggers were adept at opening coolers and containers to get at food. We’re not entirely sure, but we think one of them even took the time to spread some peanut butter on his bread slices. No one in the group remembered leaving an open jar of peanut butter out, but that doesn’t mean anything. Given the advanced ages of the camping party, short term memory was not the group’s strong point.

The main attraction at Fort Mountain State Park (aside from the chance to commune with nature and get bitten by insects) is the mysterious stone wall constructed near the top of Fort Mountain. It is a meandering line of piled rocks stretching over 900 feet. It is obviously manmade, but its origin is unknown. The best guess is that it was built by local Native Americans before Columbus for religious or ceremonial purposes, but some speculate that it was built by the Welsh or the Maya or a mystery “moon-eyed” people. Here are a couple of links to websites about the wall: Lost Worlds and Fort Mountain. 

My theory is that some medicine man ate the wrong type of mushroom, had a vision, and the next thing you know he had the whole tribe up on the mountain piling stones on each other. I imagine there were a few grumbling skeptics in the tribe wishing that the medicine man would go on a long vision quest and never return.

So there you have it. My week consisted of old farts, old forts, and old dogs. Isn't retirement great?