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Our Wild Backyard
Every kid in my neighborhood had a first camping experience and story to tell about it. For some, that first experience was in their backyard. Far enough away to constitute an adventure; close enough to the safety of the back door and soft beds, instilled the necessary courage. Still, the sounds of the night were nothing to be taken lightly.
"This will be so cool if we can survive through the night!"
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My cousin Georgie had a way of injecting just the right amount of terror into our adventures together. Neither of us, as yet, had any camping experience in our nine years, so a back yard campout sounded just right for a summer’s night escapade. This year George and I had obtained a pup tent and an axe by cashing in Plaid Stamps that we scrounged from our mothers’ grocery bags after their shopping trips at the local Acme.
“Let’s make a fire!” I suggested.
We were both pretty comfortable around fire and I had some knowledge about proper distances, stone rings, and such from a Boy Scout manual given to me by an older neighborhood kid.
“Get some newspaper and twigs. There are some pieces of two-by-fours under the front porch.” I commanded, as if directing a platoon on bivouac.
“Shut up!” George replied, ending my brief rein as commander.
He went to retrieve the two-by-fours while I went into our house for newspaper and matches.
“What are you two up to?” asked my mom, suspiciously.
“We set up the pup tent and are gonna build a fire tonight.”
“I don’t know about that. You had better talk to your father first. He should be home in an hour.”
I mentally practiced my speech about how much we knew about fire safety, building a proper campfire, and how responsible we both were now that we were going to be fifth-graders. As dad’s car pulled up the driveway, I dashed into Aunt Lizzie’s kitchen and filled a two-quart pitcher with water, and scrambled back to the campsite. Dad, still dressed in his mechanic’s overalls, came over to see what I was up to.
“What’s going on here, Joey?” He asked while inspecting the site.
He looked more tired than usual and was holding a blood stained handkerchief to his bald head. As he spent most of his day under cars on the lift, bumped heads, cracked knuckles, and sore muscles were common.
“Georgie and me are camping out tonight!”
“Oh. Are you making a campfire?”
“Yeah. Mom says, if it’s okay with you.”
“You know how to do it?”
“Sure! Right out of the manual.” I showed him a worn copy that Mrs. Liber’s son had given to me when he heard I had joined the Cub Scouts last year.
“You have enough water to put it out?”
“I think so.”
“If you need more, the hose is right over there.” He said pointing to Uncle Paul’s garden hose on the side of the house.
“Okay, thanks dad.” I beamed, realizing his permission had just been granted.
He walked to the back porch stairs, turned to me, smiled, and said:
“Be careful of the wild animals. They come out at night!”
Geez! Was he in some conspiracy with Georgie to scare me to death?
“Sure! We’ll be okay” I hope!
By the time we got a nice crackling fire going, it was dusk. As the night closed in, we watched the fire turn into glowing coals as lightening bugs rose from the ground. Later, as the lights from the house went dark, we crawled into the tent and snuggled into our blankets. Lulled by the backyard harmonies of crickets, tree frogs, and cicada, we drifted off into sleep.
“What was that?” George suddenly bolted upright.
I propped myself up onto my elbows and listened as the snorting sound came in closer.
“Probably a raccoon or somethin’!” I whispered loudly.
I unzipped the tent flap and stuck my head out in time to see chunky dark animal hustling away. It was big. I had seen raccoons before, but this was big!
“Well?” George asked as I re-zipped the tent flap..
“It was bigger than a raccoon! Maybe it was a bear!”
“Let’s go in!” George sounded as nervous as I was feeling.
“We better make sure he’s gone first.”
Both our flashlights simultaneously blinked, illuminating the tent and outside doorway. It was a ten-yard dash to the nearest back porch door that may have been locked by now. We waited. No more snorts could be heard, only the bug noises which sounded louder and more menacing by the minute. Finally I poked my head back out. The last of the embers provided reassurance, so we crept out, put our sneakers back on and stood listening.
“I think it’s gone. It ran back there, up by Mullen’s yard. Let’s go out to the front porch and sit it out for a while.” I suggested.
We made our way past grandma’s Rose-of-Sharon bushes, cut over to the side of the house, down the driveway, up a front berm, then up the steps to the front porch where we sat comforted by a glow from the streetlights waiting for who-knew-what!
“Want to go inside? Maybe we can try it again tomorrow.” George suggested after we had spent time talking about sports, girls, school, cars, our fourth-grade teacher, Miss Stanton, and scary stuff that may still be waiting for us in the back yard.
“Sure.” Who was I to argue? George was always the brave one and his advice was the rule!
Just as we were about to rise and call it a night, a police car pulled up to the curb. A strong beam of light hit our eyes and voice called:
“Are you two alright?”
“Yes.” We replied in unison nervously.
“You’d better get inside before Aunt Teeny and Aunt Josie catch you!”
The officer lowered his light and we could see it was our cousin Paddy—Officer Keyes. We were safe.
“We were just going in.”
I proceeded to babble on about our camping attempt, the suspected bear, the noises, our retreat to the front porch, and our plan to try it again tomorrow night.
“Sounds good. But be careful tomorrow. There is a lot more to be afraid of than a bear!” Paddy said in a serious tone.
The conspiracy to scare me to death was wider than I had imagined. Were there really bears in my backyard? What else could be lurking out there? Tomorrow would tell!
