Ever since I was a toddler, my family would do what every family did in the 70s. We went camping. Sometimes just to see part of our country - like the Badlands & Mount Rushmore in North & South Dakota, 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville, TN and sometimes just for fun, in the side field or the barnyard.
When my Dad would start swearing and banging around in the attic, that's when I knew the green tent was coming out. We would pull it out from the storage bag and unroll it. The rods, poles and pegs would be set aside. This was a tent made from heavy duty canvas, dark green on the top with a lighter green on the sides. As it was unrolled, my Mom would keep my brother and I away since we'd have spiders - lots of angry spiders - popping out of it. One summer my Dad even found a Black Widow inside it.
We would spray it from top to bottom with water proofing stuff - I never quite got it, why spray it with water if you wanted it water proofed? Dad always explained how it was MAGIC spray that would make water roll off it. He wasn't very happy with me when I put it to the test once with the hose. Evidently this water proof stuff had to sit for a day or two. Just no sense, I'm telling you. After it was sprayed, we would struggle with getting the poles and rods in the right places and pulled up. We had THREE windows that unzipped on each side, not only that but there were little ties that could keep the window open.
Needless to say, this green tent was amazing. Not only did it mean we were going to have an exciting adventure but we were also going to be able to poop in holes carved in planks (outhouses), shower in huge concrete bricks (communal showers at camp grounds), have awesome days of running around, looking at cool stuff, and going on tours of cool things. We camped up in the Wisconsin Dells a few times and there were boat tours of the lakes up there, caves to walk thru & cool buildings that had even cooler stuff in them (Frank Lloyd Wright houses).
Being in Kentucky for some coin show, we got to see the cave there, Mammoth Cave - 3 different tours! My Dad would normally arrange our camping trips to coincide with his antique shows. Being able to go to zoos and aquariums while he was at whatever show, seeing relatives who were in the area that we didn't know but were important to Mom, finding a cool swimming pool or a pond to mess around in -- this green tent was symbolic to a fun time.
As my brother and I got older, it was harder to go on camping trips, my parents would normally have antique shows every weekend and going on trips were more and more rare. No problem, Andy & I would set that tent up, shoo the spiders away by ourselves, spray the stuff all over (normally missing spots that would leak during rain showers), wait for the nighttime where we could get food from the house, go back out to the tent and wait for the critters. Raccoons, birds, even our cats would end up on the roof of the tent - it was always funny, especially to the babies who weren't used to this thing popping up, you could hear their moment of panic when the tent would give way a little under their weight. Then there would be a mad scramble and we'd pick the side of the tent we thought the critter would skid down. My Dad eventually put an end to this due to the scratches and damage to the tent walls.
Andy & I would have the cats inside the tent with us, or the dogs, they'd sleep under the cots we had set up. We would play games in the tent, have a kiddie pool set up outside and splash around, pretend to live there. Country life was fun. The most fun tho, was our 2 week long Monopoly Game. This is still talked about when we see each other. No pets allowed in the tent during these stress filled days - the game would be set up on the floor with our money and owned properties on our cots. This game went from fun to deadly serious within the first 3 days. We got bored with just the properties so we had a way to "buy" multiple of each property. As the game went on and we ran out of houses and hotels, my brother used his GI Joe figures while I used Barbies and their accessories. We finally got to the point where the Star Wars figures we had were used.
After the 2nd week, I believe I was winning and we had an argument about how much the GI Joe gun cost while my Barbie shoes weren't worth as much. We both had enough, ran inside and tattled on each other. My Mom came out to the tent and looked like she was furious. She made a move to go inside and we both freaked out.... don't ruin the board!! Two words were spoken before she left "CASH OUT!" So, you guessed it, we compromised - a lot of our games ended in compromising - most of the time with me smudging the results so Andy won by a small margin. After about 5 hours of us making dash lines on paper for the money amounts and cashing out all buildings, shoes, guns and Star Wars figures, we put everything away - each of us getting a shoe box to bring our toys back inside. Back inside the house, Andy watched me like a hawk as I counted up every tally mark. He ended up winning the game, I believe with less than 3 GI Joe heroes. It was close.
This green tent was the best thing of our childhood. It meant games, trips, watching out for bears, looking for deer and raccoons that came close to our campfire, happy dogs & pissed off cats (guess which pets didn't want to stay in the tent), new adventures, plenty of times to show off something to the camera... and spiders, lots of angry spiders.
