The Camper

There came a day when the old man was reminiscing about hunting days of old.  The slightly crisper weather of September, as compared to the warmer days of summer, had brought a spate of thoughts of another deer hunting season approaching.  A new year’s edition of his Sportsman’s hunting license had arrived in the mail signaling at least one more period of chasing the wily whitetail was nigh.  He leaned toward never actually killing another deer, but yet the thrill of the days of yore when camping with his old comrades paraded through the mazes of his thought processes he could no more make them recede than he could stop breathing.

So it was that early in September he once more loaded his camper on the back of his trusty pickup truck with the idea that he needed to make sure all would be ready when the time came for it to be put to use.  He told himself, and others, that it was so he could clean the area beneath it, mowing and trimming a summer’s worth of grass, weeds, and growth, but he knew deep inside that was not the reason.  He prepared because it was what he had always done, and for no other real reason.

All of the old original hunting partners were gone now, but yet he hung on to the memories of all of them.  Old Bob had been dead now for over 35 years, but it was still easy to recall the many times he had threw the dishrag out with the dishwater.  Each time he would dutifully say, “Damn it I did it again,” as he trudged outside to recover the errant rag one more time.

Bert had been gone since 1994, but how could the old man not remember all of those seasons from 1954 until then that they had hunted from the same camp year after year.  Forty years of trudging those hills.  In all of those years each had slain one of the deer they so often had sought.  Neither was a good hunter, but they enjoyed the chase just as well as those who were.

Dell, Ron, Bob, Jon, Fred, and Lawrence all had hunted from the same camp too, but all were gone to another place.  Bobby, Ronnie, and Wendell had shared many a meal as well as many an adventure from their camp.  There were others who had come and gone.  Larry and Liz, Paul, Leslie, and many others had hunted from nearby camps too.

Memories were all that was left, that and an old camper that had to be loaded.  Just because.