Last Camping Trip

“Pap, who’s this?”

Jeremy jumped on his grandfather’s lap. 

His grandfather laughed at the photograph with his grandson hugging him. “Where did you ever get this?”

“Grandma found in the bottom of a box she was cleaning out. She said to show it to you.”

His grandfather studied the picture, leaned forward while holding his grandson and tossed the picture over to Smitty who was in the next chair sipping a beer. 

The two men grew up together. They met in Junior High and by the time they got to high school they were best friends. Over the past 50 years they remained close even though they lived hundreds of miles apart. The two had their ups and downs, but they were tight. Tight as ever. 

“Who are the people in the picture?”

Smitty smiled, “Well, one is your grandfather.”

Looking up at his grandfather, “You had red hair?”

“No that’s me on the end,” Smitty said, holding the picture. “This one,” he pointed to the man on the other end of the picture. “This is your grandfather.”

“Hey, Pap, you had hair! And it was long!” Jeremy laughed only the way a six year old can. “Marmee,” Jeremy yelled, “Pap had long hair and a beard!”

Jeremy studied the picture intently. “Who’s the other person?”

His grandfather pointed to the man standing in the middle of the picture. All three had their arms slung across each other’s shoulders and were laughing. The middle one stood on his toes as he threw his chest out. “That’s my brother?”

“You have a brother? I have an uncle!”

He stared through the picture at the three young men who had the whole world before them. “Yeah, he was my brother.” His eyes watered as he studied the picture, remembering. “Jeremy, he died a long time ago.”

Smitty took a long swig of beer before chiming in. “Yeah. It was a while ago.” 

      Looking at the picture it was easy to see three guys leaning against an old car full of promise and hope. 

      “Jeremy,” Smitty said, “We used to call your grandfather’s car ‘Nightmare.’ Because she kept breaking down at the worse possible time and place.” He laughed, “Hey, remember breaking down on the parkway?”

       “Yeah, we were only a few miles from the exit.”

       “Jeremy, the three of us pushed the car all the way to the exit ramp then coasted down to a gas station.  Your grandfather pushed with a shoulder while steering with me and his brother pushing behind.”

        “Hey, we made it. Didn’t we? No problem.” 

        The two men laughed, remembering the hot day of pushing a broken car on the shoulder of the highway among speeding cars with horns honking. 

        Smitty took hold of the picture and smiled. “This was the picture we took before we left. Your father snapped it in your driveway.”

        “Where did you go?”, Jeremy asked. 

        “We went camping,” Smitty answered. 

        “Actually,” said grandfather looking over at Smitty, “we hiked the Appalachian Trail.”  

        “How old were you?”, Jeremy asked. 

        “Well, Smitty and I were both 18. My brother was 15.” 

        Smitty leaned back in the recliner, “We hiked a portion of the trail.”

        “It was the last time we ever hiked it,” Jeremy’s grandfather paused. “After that I never really wanted to go back.” 

        Smitty, with the old picture in hand looked at the three young men. They were three happy teenagers. The camera captured them smiling and excoted as they anticipated the long awaited camping trip. A long, awkward silence was broken as he pointed to the picture. “Remember hiking through ‘the gap’ and we came across the family of deer? We got so close until you stepped on a twig and scarred them off.” 

“Yeah, well. Jeremy, we were camping in the open field on the banks of a stream. It was really pretty and peaceful.”

      Smitty said, “That’s when we got the fresh ears of corn.”

      “Jeremy,” his grandfather said, “it was the first week of August. The corn was up. The tassels danced in the breeze. We picked three ears of corn, and roasted it over our open fire.”

      Smitty took another swallow of beer, laughed and said, “Wasn’t it like three ears each?”

      “Yep, and if I remember you felt sick all night.”

“We’ll, I do remember that it was the best corn I ever ate.”

      “How about the rain. We got soaked. I think they lied when they said our jackets were water poof.”

      “I think they attracted rain instead of repelling it!”

“Jeremy, we were hiking with our full packs on when my brother slipped on a wet rock. He lost his balance and he went down real hard.”

Smitty added, “The rock was rounded and moss covered. He thought he slipped on it and fell.”

“Yeah, when we helped him up it was pretty evident that his ankle was broken. The bone was sticking out and he was screaming.”

“We were miles from our car.” Smitty said, shaking his head, remembering the wet leaves, the green moss, the screaming of his young friend in pain.

“Quickly we built a splint and taped his leg to it. But after a few steps he couldn’t walk. The pain was too bad.”

“So,” Smitty said, “we built a type of stretcher from green branches, strapped him to it and we carried him down the trail and out of the woods. Not far from where he went down there was an off trail. We carried them down it. The trail led to a small town. We thought from there we could get help.” 

“That was our plan. We carried him to a small general store that was to assist hikers passing through. We tucked our hair up under our ball caps and went in the general store.”

“I remember,” Smitty said, “that there were four men on the general store’s wooden porch watching us in old rocking chairs. Their eyes never left us.” 

“Yep, I remember them staring at us as if we were Martians with three heads. Smitty, remember they never said a word to us. They just sat there rocking back and forth like a silent metronome stationed on a ledge.”

“We needed to use the phone to call for help,” Smitty said, looking over at Jeremy and his grandfather. “They wouldn’t let us use the phone or buy supplies.”

“They threw us out of the store because we have long hair.”

“I thought you had a hat on,” Jeremy asked.

“We did,” his grandfather answered. “But they saw it was tucked under the cap. One ‘good ole boy’ wearing blue bids and overalls used a broken cue stick to flip Smitty’s ball cap off.”  

“With that,” Smitty said, “we were forced out of the store and community. They were yelling at us. One said he was going to shave my head.”

“Two threw bear bottles at us.”

Smitty laughed, “the bottles at least could have had beer in it. I could have used a beer after all that.”

“Long story Jeremy, but we carried my brother back to the parked car. About 25 miles, I guess. You know, pushing that car was good practice!” Smitty tossed Jeremy’s grandfather a cold beer after getting another one for himself. “My brother, we found out a little later, had a form of bone cancer. He fell because his leg broke. He didn’t slip. His leg gave out. Later we found out that he had small fractures in his leg. The strain of carrying his backpack maybe helped to shatter his leg. Six months later, right after his sixteenth birthday he died. The cancer was too much.” 

Smitty and Jeremy’s grandfather raised their beer in the air and said, “To Harry!” With that they took a big swallow of beer, smiled and remembered Harry’s big grin and gentle laugh.