As a family, when our three kids were small, we were seriously addicted to camping. National parks, commercial campgrounds, and sometimes even in the back yard next to the pool. (We had a swimming pool until changing weather conditions changed that, cracking the pool and giving the city the excuse it needed to bully us into removing the pool and declaring bankruptcy over the expenses my week in the hospital after losing the argument with the city caused.) So, in the back yard it was okay to sleep naked outdoors and go skinny dipping in the pool accidentally in the middle of the night when you have to go into the house to pee. And it was great.
And even in national parks, you can get away with a bit of naked camping if you wait until after dark. And in Texas the risk of rattlesnakes was real. Except in one place we camped. Over East near Victoria, Texas there was a park with a man-made lake that had alligators in it… and water moccasins… and eagles flying above it. So, there were no rattlesnakes. The alligators and the eagles eat them. But the alligators and eagles don’t eat water moccasins. So, no skinny dipping after dark
We spent one Thanksgiving weekend at that park in Victoria with the gators, eagles, and water moccasins.
And we went with my in-laws, grandpa and grandma, and my sister-in-law and her second husband with their three kids and their fancy, air-conditioned motor home. And my parents, one of my two sisters, and my little brother and his wife, dedicated tent campers all. (And all of them dedicated to the idea of NOT being nudists.) It was an unusual Thanksgiving because my wife’s family is Filipino. And we had a lot of fried fish and fried hot dogs and friend stuff with Filipino names. And a turkey that my brother was determined to cook in an oil cooker that sat over the campfire which he had learned how to use at his place near Houston. The Thanksgiving campfire, oil-cooked-turkey experiment got flash-cooked in a sudden whoosh of unexpected fireballs, and the blackened bird meat ended up being a favorite of all the Filipinos. Myself, I was planning to eat hot dogs all along. I don’t like turkey. But it was a very warm November in Southeast Texas that year. And it was hot way late into the night. I was not allowed to sleep nude because… well, wife’s orders. She and my three kids left our tent every night before a half hour of tossing and turning in the humid heat had passed, and ended up in the motor home with the air conditioning. Leaving me to swelter in the tent alone. Which I didn’t do.
Having learned from the alien encounter in Iowa about the possibility of naked transcendental experiences, I spent four nights that holiday walking in my sleeping robe down to a picnic table on the shore of the lake. Water moccasins hunt in the water. So do alligators. So as long as I stayed at the picnic table on the land side, I could sit naked in the coolest night air available, occasionally glancing at the water hoping to see alligators whenever I heard a splashing. And I could look up at a star-filled, cloudless sky. And I thought about nothing, but felt everything. I was connected to the heart of the universe for four straight nights, and it cleansed my soul. I eventually felt cool enough to go back and sleep in the tent, but my mind stayed connected as I slept. And it was a memorable holiday experience for more reasons than just the blackened turkey story.
And most importantly, no relatives were mooned beyond their ability to cope with Mickey’s weirdness. Nobody even asked about it… almost as if no one had seen.
It Hin
Catch a Falling Star 