Husband finds unique way to fit in at women’s camp

Warm sunshine, cool waves, damp dogs and musty tents. What a way to ring in the first official days of summer! Camping along the shores of Lake Erie has become a tradition for Kristin and a circle of close friends from her high school days. Husbands travel along mostly to observe the spectacle, provide technical support, and carefully offer loose supervision and conflict resolution services as occasionally required.

My greatest contributions to the annual adventure have typically included holding the dog’s leash while the missus dodges into the Porta Potty and occasionally extracting the mangled remains of a cork from the neck of a wine bottle. A man must know his place at Women’s Camp, and it is mostly in the shade of a nearby tree. This is not a venue for gentlemanly heroics.

It probably doesn’t need to be said that “breaking and entering” has never appeared on the trip’s itinerary, but when a man yearns for adventure, his horizons tend to broaden. I suppose that’s the most logical defense I can offer for having pried open the window of a stranger’s camper and crawled inside. Desperation can drive a man to extremes.

Thankfully, rather than being either shot or arrested, I was feted as a low-level hero for the act, and I am happy to report my rap sheet remains felony-free as of this writing. The metaphorical key to the happy outcome was retrieving the physical key to the camper from behind the locked door of our campground neighbors.

It was just about suppertime when a small, grandmotherly-looking woman, Diane, came walking into our camp looking for thin, flat objects along with a person capable of using them to crack the lock on her family’s 30-foot pull-behind. One of their number had flipped the door latch when they’d left for the beach earlier in the day, unwittingly leaving both the main key and the spare locked inside. Now three generations sat defeated and roasting in the afternoon sun, hoping for a hero with a pancake spatula or some other such device to come along and set them free.

I leapt out of my camp chair quicker than a frog fleeing a frying pan, grabbed my spatula, a flat-headed screwdriver and followed Diane toward the crisis.

The scene at their campsite was one of sad resignation. Chris, the patriarch of the family, stood conjuring every possible option for getting inside the locked-down domicile. I instantly connected with Chris, for I too have known such a circumstance. The weight of the world rested firmly upon his shoulders as the fate of his family’s vacation. I promised myself right then and there that one of us was getting into that camper, even if it took the rest of the weekend to make it happen! (To be continued next week.)

Kristin and John Lorson would love to hear from you. Write Drawing Laughter, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email John at jlorson@alonovus.com.