an avid camper
um i'm a more of of a wanna be
uh-huh
uh my wife uh
uh was an only child but her family all through her adolescence had a uh small pull behind trailer
so they didn't go out necessarily camping in tents and such but they did a lot of weekend um trips all through the midwest and the east uh Lancaster Pennsylvania and so forth and so on they did a lot of traveling with that so
if you count that as camping which may some people may or may not um she had a lot of experience with that and
when we first uh got engaged and got married we you know kind of hung around did a lot of stuff with her folks uh till they sold sold the trailer and then finally they passed away but
don't have a whole lot of experience or opportunities to but we're we're all kind of wanna-bes here at the family
there is sort of a wide range of camping opportunities i remember when i was a kid my only my only camping experience was when i was about thirteen or so and it the Y camp used to have an overnight every so often
um-hum
and we'd cut down a couple of saplings or you nowadays you wouldn't cut down saplings i guess
yeah i mean i know what you mean
and we'd lash them up which lash was tying and we'd make sort of a triangular thing and you know with a tarp over the top
sure
there you go
and um sleeping bag dug a hole made a fire uh the old shovel with the toilet paper over it so that i think that's real legitimate camping
uh just recently uh my husband and i and our kids joined a friend whose parents has one of the have one of these big Silver Bullet trailers that stay parked in upstate New York and
um-hum
i chuckled when i got there there was a microwave oven and a gas burner stove and five bunk beds and heat for the evening i mean
um-hum
um-hum
that's that's more like a mobile home
yeah but it was so big that you know they don't use it mobilely it just you know you you pull it somewhere and you leave it there it's sort of like a summer house i guess and i guess that's camping too um
not a camper
uh-huh
yeah
i guess my kid you know my kids go to the YM um or go to the uh girl scout camp
uh there are several of them here in southwest Ohio that are all run by the same uh council
and they're usually there for a week each during the summer at some point so they're they do a lot more rustic camping but most most of their meals are served in the mess hall
i think they have one or two outings where they cook at the campsite
um out in the fringes of the uh of the park rather than uh than at the than at the um mess hall so they get some of it
um-hum
the only other opportunity really that i get anything like that is uh in the summer um
i'm a ham radio operator and
oh tell me about it you ready for Dayton
oh can't wait uh like a pilgrimage to Mecca
right
but it's and it's very convenient for me because it's only forty five minutes up the road
uh-huh
but um for field day which is an exercise in the summer where ham it know it's it's it's a couple of things it's supposed to be a uh a demonstration of how
the ham community can be mobilized to to operate under simulated emergency or field conditions
i think i've heard something about this you go set up a tower right
yeah where well some people set up towers other people use a fishing line and pull wires up into trees and use wire antennas or whatever depending on how energetic the club is but uh
um-hum
you know it it's also a contest see how many other ham stations you can contact who are doing the same thing
and then it's also a chance to get out with your buddies and drink beer and play radio all night
or if if you you know we have a number of women in the club also but it's you know it's a chance to get out with your friends and drink beer and play radio all night
but we do go out to one of the local city city municipal whatever parks um here in Cincinnati and uh you know go up on top of a tall hill and string some wires up in the trees and such and
um put out the picnic tables and uh lawn chairs and set up the equipment with a generator and set up a tent for the kids to sleep in or for the people who are who are uh taking a break to to go off and sleep in
and then use propane
stove to cook breakfast at six o'clock the next morning with and that's about as close to camping as i really have much of a chance to get right now
uh right i mean you know there's not that much free time and i don't know uh we we we daydream about going camping i guess uh there's a very nice state park around here um that we're on Long Island
um-hum
oh um-hum
and um near Montauk if you've ever heard of it the big light house out there there's a beach state park where you can you know they have tent sites i guess we'd have to rent all that stuff and
um
and there's picnic tables and there's the beach and i guess it's pretty popular it's sort of a um a lottery for who gets it and you have to apply at the right time and people in the know how do that and we keep thinking about doing it and it
