Archive for January, 2007

I grew up loving the outdoors. My father and his siblings had inherited quite a few acres of undeveloped land out in the country. Me and my brothers spent a lot of time out there hunting, camping and searching for arrowheads in the freshly tilled soybean fields. Dad taught us all about camping and outdoor safety and all of us learned to love being out in the woods.

When I was a Sophomore in High School me and two friends decided we would go camping out there for part of our spring break. We thought this was a good idea. Looking back, I really can’t believe my parents let us do it. Teenage boys, no supervision, loaded weapons, fire and wide open spaces: who thought this was a good idea?

There were three of us. All of us were bad for each other and knew it. We knew it, and liked it. Alan and I had been buddies since kindergarten. He was always quiet, artistic, and sure of himself. I wouldn’t call it confidence (though later it became that), but it was just that he always seemed to have a pretty good sense of who he was. Alan was always the one saying, “This is stupid. That’s a terrible idea and it’s going to end BADLY.”

Chris was the idea man. The visionary. He was fairly new to the group and had regaled us with stories of his worldly experiences in the forbidden zone of the public school system. You see, we were in private Christian school and had been since K-5. We looked at Chris like a new prisoner in a Turkish prison where all the old prisoners crowd around and ask things like: “What’s it like out there? Are there flying cars yet? Have they found a cure for warts? Give us news, MAN. ANYTHING!”

As for my role in the group… I was the willing executor of all Chris’ exciting schemes. My fear of my father’s discipline was enough to suppress any nefarious creativity when on my own, but not enough to quench my desire to be cool. No, the desire to be cool can only be killed by the hand of God and harsh consequences.

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