Bed Bug

Some of my favorite memories of being a child were of fishing and camping with my family. Summers at Pawtuckaway state park, the white mountains and in the back yard.

We always tent camped when I was with my parents and sister but my Gramps Gallup had a few campers over the years growing up and I remember these trips very well.

I’m actually lucky to even be here. Camping is dangerous believe it or not. Once I got lost in a state park camp ground while going to the bathroom. I couldn’t find my way back to the campsite. Luckily a park ranger found me and I was reunited with my family after about 10 mins of being lost.

Does everyone remember those fold up aluminum and plastic weave camping chairs? Same as the ones in the above picture. Well you know how your mom always said “don’t lean back in you chair”, she should have warned me about leaning forward.

We were all sitting around the campfire one night roasting marshmallows and I was being the fidgety 6 year old I was and rocking in my folding very colorful plastic weave chair and that sucker folded up and shot me out right into the camp fire. Well I survived the burns and my parents survived there heart attacks but I get to have the scar. My kids squint at the little discolored spot is n my belly that is all that is left when ever I tell the story. I usually tell it when they are leaning in there camp chairs.

It was not all a horror show of me being on a carton of milk as a missing child or the trauma of nearly being burned to death in an inferno. I remember my gramps would buy the really big blueberries at the grocery store and would stick them one by one of the regular blueberry bushes around camp. He would tell us that they were special bushes only at our camp site. I’m glad I’m able to pass this on to my kids and hopefully my grandkids someday.

Once while camping a very nice gentleman showed me how to catch brook trout. I had never fished in a river before only in ponds and lakes. I stood in the river catching trout so long my mom had to drag me out because I couldn’t feel my feet anymore. Best day of fishing in my whole life.

My mother and my gramps taught me the basics of fishing, the rest I learned on my own.

That’s me second from the left. I was only the mate on the boat that day but I like helping people catch fish as much as I love fishing. I like to think I taught my family to fish but I think maybe they were just naturals.

I am glad that I got the bug and it never left.

Oh yeah the bed part of this whole thing. Who the heck makes mattress for RV’s. They are advertised as these “best in the industry”, “better than the the mattress in your house”, “you’ll never sleep on another mattress again” sort of thing. It should just say “you’ll never sleep again, on this mattress” we would be better off with a burlap bag of rocks.