T is for Tents

Time Ticking with T for the A to Z Challenge.

Tents. No, I'm not talking about dresses in large size or bloomers. (As a kid, I teased my grandma when she hung her bloomers on the clothes line by calling them tents. I was a curmudgeon at a very early age.)

When I was in France, I bought a big, bright blue tent during the May 1968 riots. It was a "just in case I have to get out of town" purchase. We didn't have to leave because of the riots, but we used that tent a lot.

Why is it that whenever you buy a new tent and go camping, the first time you use it, you arrive at the campground after dark? And struggle to get the damn thing put up. I guess it does serve the purpose of providing slap stick comedy for the other campers.

The tent had poles for the awning and poles for the skeleton and poles for the poles. After a few times, I could put it up in my sleep (aided by color coded tape that I'd added), but the first few times were traumatic.

In France, we camped next to the Med and in Biarritz next to the Atlantic for Bastille Day. That one was a potential disaster, in that a wind storm came up while we were away watching fireworks. Luckily, other campers took pity on us and anchored the tent with cement blocks so it wouldn't blow away.

We brought the tent back to the states and used it in Minnesota, Massachusetts, Michigan, Virginia and Florida. Even watched a couple of Shuttle launches from Jetty Park in Cape Canaveral. It lasted for years.

Tent camping was fun. But, we were younger then!