Dungeons and Dragons wasn’t always cool. Back in the 90’s, it was a game played by pimply, greasy, pubescent boys on shag brown carpet under dim incandescent lights with Led Zeppelin rocking in the background. I know because I was one of those boys. Back then I think my friends and I spent more time trying to make each others’ characters miserable, and by extension ourselves, by throwing sadistic, borderline hilarious plot devices at one another.
I had forgotten all about my own experiences until my daughter, Ashley, bought a Dungeons and Dragons Starter Set for her and her friends to play. At first I was astounded that she wanted to play. I mean, Dungeons and Dragons is ( was ) for nerds, right? I was comfortable with it when I was her age, but Ashley? However, after gauging her enthusiasm my attitude quickly morphed into encouragement and finally, well, rejection…
My daughter, Kaylee, was selected to join her school’s safety patrol. On her first day on duty as a crossing guard I decided to pay her a visit. It went something like this….
On the upside, the smoke kept the mosquitos away. No one complained of a single bite!
William Heise Campground. Seven families. Thirty people. And one bathroom, at least for the first night.
Apparently, at some point in my distant past I was a camper, because I surprised myself and my much more outdoorsy neighbor, Missy, the organizer of the expedition, by the sheer amount of camping equipment I had stuffed into the deepest, darkest corners of garage. It was almost as if I never wanted myself to find it again. Planning ahead I had bought a brand new tent in celebration of Amazon’s Prime Day, only to find two more hidden in my garage during my excavation.
“This new tent will work out better“, I insisted, “It’s bigger and we’ll all be able to sleep together!”
Mistake.
On the first night I realized that our massive 6-person tent was a tighter squeeze than I expected. Worse, I shared an air mattress with Kaylee. Being heavier, I created a depression that she couldn’t help but roll into and subsequently, on top of me. I escaped to the van and spent a sleepless night reclined in the driver’s seat, sleeping for maybe an hour or two in 15-minute spurts. I wasn’t the only one, either. Jodie ended up reading through the night. As for my other daughter, Ashley? She rolled off the air mattress she shared with Jodie and slept, face-planted on the bare vinyl floor of the tent. To each her own.
The toilet and showers gave out early the next day. Suspiciously, the outage coincided with our fearless leader, Missy, contracting a very nasty stomach bug. Being the trooper she was, she insisted on toughing it out, to the extent of trying to follow along on a 3-mile hike in 90+ degree weather. Mercifully, she retreated back to camp only to be voted “off the island” and chaffuered home with a crate of Gatorade and saltine crackers.
A trip to Miner’s Diner in Julian and heaping scoops of ice cream cheered everyone up. Heck, I would have paid good money just to sit in the air conditioned splendor. As luck would have it the diner had an entire basement full of candy which each of the kids took turns exploring.
Some campers truly roughed it, if only by keeping their car’s A/C above 78 degrees.
“Hey, Kay! “Check these out!”, I called to my youngest, Kaylee.
“What are those?”, she asked.
“Sugar candy cigarettes!”, I announced.
“I haven’t seen these in years. Pretty inappropriate for this day and age.”, I reminisced.
She nodded in agreement.
Later that night, back at the campsite, we dined on packaged ramen, canned beans, and store-bought tortillas in an effort to hedge against any more food poisoning stemming from the BBQ’d burgers we had eaten the night before. After getting the campfire started my friend, Mike, strummed guitar while the kids all lined up on a squat fence bordering the campsite.
“Uh, what are they doing?”, Jodie asked.
“Smoking cigarettes.”, I said.
I averted her eyes.
“Don’t worry, they’re sugar. I couldn’t resist.”, I smiled. “It’s nostalgic”.
The second night was quieter. Unsurprisingly, many campers decided to hoof it rather than risk stumbling through the brush in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. My bedroom, the van, was commandeered at least once to make the journey to the remaining operable bathroom a half mile down the road. Sleep was elusive, even more so when Kaylee popped her head in.
“I can’t sleep in the tent”, she moaned, “Can I sleep in here with you?”
“You can try”, I laughed. “I haven’t had any luck.”
She was out cold within minutes in the passenger seat next to me, snoring.
I would say I was up early the next morning, but as I never really went down it’s kind of a misnomer. We managed a pretty good spread of pancakes and scrambled eggs before everyone decided to cut their losses, beat the heat, and head home early.
“Next time? Cabins.”, Jodie suggested.
“Right?”, I agreed absent-mindedly. My exhausted mind theorizing where in the garage I could re-entomb my collection of tents and camping gear so that they would never, ever, be discovered again.
Two years ago today I had my prostate removed as a result of being diagnosed with prostate cancer a few months prior. Surgery or no it was one of the crazier days of my life. The “novel” coronavirus had just made headways into the United States and hospitals were beginning to enforce visitation limits. Jodie wasn’t allowed to stay for my surgery, or even visit when I woke up. It was probably a good thing because my daughter, Kaylee, broke her arm while I was being rolled into the operating room. In some twist of irony Kaylee and I both had operations on the same day, and likely the same time. Jodie and Kaylee were so worried about upsetting me that neither wanted to tell me what had happened, although I eventually found out. It’s incredibly hard to hide a bright pink cast, after all.
We recovered together. We had lots of time to recover, too. What eventually became known as COVID took a lot away, but it also gave Kaylee and I a lot of time to do nothing. And nothing is exactly what it takes to recover from surgery – I mean surgeries, plural.
I’d like to say that was the end of my cancer story, but it wasn’t. Less than six months later I started radiation treatment. This was in addition to two years of testosterone-eliminating hormone therapy, too.
Fast forward two years to today. Today marks three months since stopping all treatments. I had my quarterly blood work done today and it indicated that my cancer is still undetectable. Better yet, my testosterone has returned to normal levels as well. This is all good news.
I’m still not in the clear, and honestly I may never be, but every good test results inches me closer to – what? A cure? No, not cure. My doctor has made it clear that “cure” is not in the vernacular for people in my situation. At best people like me get to stay in remission. Long, happy, grateful, normal, live-life-to the-fullest remission.
Ever get the feeling that you feed your pets just a little better than you feed your kids? Sometimes I do … and then I see my dog eat a rock and all is right in the world again.
One day in the near future when COVID is a distant memory my family and I will all look back and laugh about that one time while we were all working/schooling from home and our device’s batteries all died simultaneously.
My brother in law, Curtis, and I have theorized that the way AirPods really work is by inducing conversation as soon as you shove the things into your skull. Granted, it could be a genetic fluke given that the greatest offenders are our identical twin wives, but I have a feeling it goes further than that.
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