Cabin Fever Chronicles:
At the end of the fourth-grade school year, my teacher held a big campout for students on her rural property.
After roasting hot dogs and marshmallows, we kids pretty much ran wild, especially after dark.
A classmate named Faith, who had a crush on me, snuck up and kissed me on the cheek, then dashed away. The chase was on! I was furious, as any fourth-grade boy would naturally be. I never caught up with Faith. If I had, I’d have punched her on the arm.
After what seemed like playing all night, other boys and I retired to our big tent. I got in my sleeping bag, but reasoned that dawn was nearly here. Wanting a head start on the morning, I rolled up my sleeping bag and waited, lying with my head on it while the other boys slept warmly in their cocoons.
As it turned out, many a cold hour remained until dawn, and I lay shivering the rest of the night outside my sleeping bag, the victim of over-anticipation.
Huckleberry Finn
One Saturday I was moping around the house complaining of boredom. Dad suggested I read a book, like “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.”
I wasn’t interested — even that sounded boring. But finally in desperation I picked it up and started reading.
I was hooked immediately. Couldn’t put it down. I WAS Tom Sawyer, with a good dose of Huckleberry Finn.
I started carrying marbles in my pockets like Tom, and whistling “Buffalo Gals” when I walked down the street.
I devised a plan to build a raft and float the Mississippi River from Memphis to New Orleans, just like Huck. That didn’t go over too well with Mother. But Dad, wise in the ways of boys, suggested I go ahead and build it, and we’d try it out on a local stream first.
Wow! A friend and I dragged a bunch of old logs into the back yard. We laid them out side by side and nailed 2-by-4 cross pieces, then a deck of boards lengthwise. The thing weighed a ton.
Somehow we shoved one end into the trunk of our car, the other end sticking up at an angle, and lashed it down. And we were off to the Loosahatchie River, a muddy creek.
The raft was so heavy it sank to deck level as soon as we launched it. When we stepped onto it, it sank even farther, giving the impression we were standing on water.
My friend and I poled it down the stream — while my older brother and his buddy snuck through the woods. They jumped out with savage yells and threw us off. We didn’t mind getting wet.
When we tired of romping and poling, we left the raft there (who would steal it?) and came back to play on it a few times before I lost interest.
In the meantime I forgot all about rafting the Mississippi. Dad knew what he was doing.
Tarzan Junior
We swung on vines every chance we got. At one place you could swing off a steep bluff, a huge thrill.
I happened to mention that to my mother and she was horrified. She explained that vines can break — which I knew was not true because I watched Tarzan movies and his never did.
Like Tarzan, I was in tune with wildlife. When walking in the woods one day, I looked up and saw an owl, peering down at me. I was surprised it didn’t fly off, even when I started talking to it.
I had an idea: I began doing the Johnny Weismuller Tarzan cry, at which I was expert (or so it seemed to me).
The next day when I got home from school I stood at the edge of the back yard facing the woods and did the cry for quite a while. Nothing.
But I kept at it every afternoon, and about three days later discovered the owl perched on a power line behind the house. Apparently Tarzan wasn’t the only one who could summon wildlife with his cry.
