Our Camping History 1963 to 1975

Clattertruck wrote:


I would have been happy in the 19th century. The day after I was born in 1933, George Armstong Custer's wife, Libby, died. I was in college before I ever saw TV.

I would have liked to have met Libby Custer (or heard her lecture) for its own sake. Her life _after_ George is as large to me as Custer himself. I've had to settle for visiting their last billet at Fort Lincoln (Bismark, ND).

I was tenting from about 1966 through 2005. I can _appreciate_ your forays with the tent - - if I can't actually identify with it. A big chasm exists between those of us that manage to take to the tent and RVers. The tenters seemed to practically dissapear by 2005 so we stopped "fighting" the RVers and joined them. It's not really camping though, ...when you _don't_ have an overlooked stick or a rock poking you in the a$$ all night. Reminds me of the 'newbie' RVers, too, who want the odds calculated that they might freeze to death in their new RV {grin!}.

I really can't remember a time without television. My family lived in reception range to Cinncinati and my dad was an early adopter. Unfortunately, some of my earliest memories involve television - - when I was about two.

We've camped at that very site at Squaw Flats and walked up on the dome above. It puts things in perspective to see that loop unpaved and then paved. Although I can't say I would have had an inking that the shot was from 50 years ago unless you had told us. The view hasn't changed all that much (thankfully).

ON EDIT: I just realized that I never slept in a tent (while camping) until about the mid-1970s! Before that it was all under the stars with maybe a tarp in the best of circumstances. I think I had a bivy sack in the mid-1970s which was sort of like a body-bag for those of you that have never set foot outside your RV. Just a little something to keep the rain off one's sleeping bag.