I learned a lot from my last camping trip with Mum and two of the boys. Mostly that campfire Ghost stories are just as tough as I thought they would be. I have a new appreciation for the Imaginations of my predecessors.
The best part about camping with Dad and Uncle Crazy Legs had to be the Ghost stories. They had a vast repertoire; from the Humorous to the Benign; all the way into tales that could make the blood of the most worldly seventeen-year-old run to ice.
And you always knew when it was time; the fire was brightening against the chill of the mountain summer's eve, and Dad or Uncle Crazy Legs would start like a distant howl on the wind...
"WhoooooHoooooooooooo..."
It was campy, but it always worked. Every kid, any age sat with rapt attention until the story was done. Very often one or two had eyes squeezed shut, or left in fright all together. It was glorious.
Naturally the mark of success for a ghost story was how hard it was for which kids to fall asleep. You'd be amazed at how much spookier the bush is at night after one of their better tellings. I hope you went to the bathroom before it got dark, because, believe me... you aren't interested in leaving the camper now.
A little taste of moonlight plays through the trees and throws faint shadows that move with the boughs in the breeze... really - just stay in your sleeping bag. The terror is delicious.
We actually tried, as kids, to record some of these stories for posterity, with varying success. I must admit though, that success has diminished given that those recordings, to my knowledge, have passed into legend along with the stories themselves.
Dad did start writing a manuscript about 20 years ago. He never finished it; there was always one more hill to hike up, one more trail to ride down, and that's really the way it should have been. I have that manuscript now, and the technology to convert it back to a usable form... and the collected memory of a dozen now-adult cousins to flesh out the stories. And, it turns out, I have something else.
I was sweating bullets, and I had researched the history of the area for three days... but on our last camping trip, I told my boys a ghost story of my own devise.
Kid Two didn't admit to much, but it kept Youngest Kid up that night.
Thanks, Dad.
