For my 12th birthday we went fishing as we did every year.
I was able to invite a couple of friends and my cousins to ride up
in the camper with us to a local lake and fish and joke all night and
then fish all the next day and then come home. This year we had got
off to a slow start and didn't get out to Strawberry reservoir until
after dark. We were just going to hang out outside and wait till
morning to fish but the next camp over was getting quite
rambunctious. They had a huge fire in the center of about six RV's
and vehicles and had music blasting quite loudly. As we observed them
from our camp a hundred feet away we were quick to notice that they
were drinking some sort of intoxicating liquor which may have lowered
their social inhibition and consequently lowered their requirement
for culturally mandated clothing. When my dad had finished getting
stuff squared away and got outside to look at the camp and noticed
that there were quite a few more naked women then he felt comfortable
letting a bunch of 12 and 13-year-olds observe he bustled us all back
in the cab-over to talk and mingle in there. He determined it was too
late and too dark to try and find another camp spot that night so we
would just hide out until the morning and pick a new spot then. The
party went on for quite a while and we stayed up talking and joking
while my dad kept the 9mm handy just in case they decided to include
us in their party. Their party and ours drifted to sleep in the wee
hours and we woke up early to move to a new spot and get fishing but
when we came out of the camper there was a little frost on the
ground. Some of the revelers had not made it back into the comforts
of the Rvs and were still naked or mostly naked passed out around the
fire's remains with a light frosting of frost in the frigid morning.
During the nights one of their jeeps had rolled or been driven into
the water and all that was visible was about the top 18” of the
cab. We went on to fish and joke about frozen wieners and shore up,
by the retelling, one of the truly timeless memories for us and for
the party people I am sure.
