My Heart Attack
22. I like to camp and I am good at it.
23. I can start a fire with one match and a small quantity of bacon grease.
I only got to go camping once this summer. It was in early June. My girlfriend and I have been going to the same spot off and on for about five years. The place is lake Moomaw which is in the Warm Springs area of Virginia, in the western part of the state. We go there because my GF insists on going someplace with bathrooms and I too, in my fat spoiled lifestyle, have come to appreciate the luxury of a toilet and hot water after a long day of fun and sun. The disadvantages of this style of camping is, of course, that there are other people around and your restricted to setting up camp on gravel tent pads.
I used to camp in the bowels of George Washington National Forest, a hundred or so miles north-east of Moomaw. That is where I learned how. That is where, like a baby duck, I was imprinted with the idea of what 'real camping' is. In GW, primitive camping is what I'd do. These camp sites are little more than a pull off along side the 'road.' The bathrooms consist of designated trees or hollows sufficiently far away from camp that you can't hear the shouts and hoots of friends and family as you try to do your business. The bathing facilites are the ice cold stream. I'd still bathe every day there , but generally at high noon, when it was hot enough that you could lay out on the rocks and recover from the shock of the cold, cold water.
Moomaw, however, has the additonal advantage of the lake. It is man made, created in the sixties, when the James river (I think) was dammed up, creating the lake behind it. It is still nice. There are beaver and you can see the remains of roads leading right down into the lake in some places which make good fodder for scarey stories, that I've been forbidden to tell anymore as they tend to scare everyone and then we have to tramp en masse to the bath rooms in the middle of the night whenever it is required.
Our trips to Moomaw have frequently been marked by really bad weather. The first time we went there, just as we pulled in, the mother of all hail storms swept through the area pummeling the area and my poor truck with golf ball ( no shit) sized iced cubes for fifteen or twenty minutes. We huddled in the truck listening to the drums of doom beat down on it's roof and talking about turning around and going home. I'm all for camping, but not so much for roughing it. The storm, coming when it did before we had time to set up, may have been a lucky thing for us though as the camp site we picked was under ankle deep water after the storm passed, so we picked another. We had a great time that trip, after a trip to the laundry mat to dry all of Lori's clothes and her and I's bedding , the only thing that got wet as a result of the trip
This summer when we went up we were again threatened by poor weather. This time it was just Lori and I. I drove the whole way up, about 6 hours the way we travel, stopping at every rest stop and gas station, loading up on candy and chips and generally goofing around a lot. On the way up my right shoulder began to hurt. This I beleive is a result of an old injury I sustained while working for years doing menial lalbor in a grocery chain and aggravated by spending considerable time working in the freezer of said establishment. It crops up every once in a while when I turn or twist a certain secret ( to me) way. Anyway, it started hurting on the way up . It usually feels like someone has pounded a rail road spike through my shoulder blade and peirced my chest. Every time I move my arm I can feel the imaginary spike grating against the bones and muscle in my shoulder. Driving made me move my arm a lot so naturally it began to hurt a lot.
We get up to Moomaw and there is a light rain falling. It isn't too bad, perhaps a bit chilly, so we set up camp, without much issue. The tent goes up, in goes our bedding, nice and dry, and I even manage to get a fire going ( though since we were'nt there for breakfast and thus didn't have bacon grease and the wood was a bit damp it took more than one match, much to my personal and private shame).
By this time, it was late afternoon and the rain seemed to be getting a bit worse so we decided to cook dinner and spend the rest of the evening reading in the tent -- no big deal. Then, of course, it started raining much harder. I had to hold this parasol thing over the coleman stove while Lori, cooked our deluxe tacos (much to complicated for rainy Half assed cooking it turns out). The tent was getting pummeled and we didn't want to eat in there so we opted to eat in the truck. This required me to go back and forth in the rain gathering up utensils and beer and such.
Soon enough I got really cold and I started to experience chest pains. I had trouble breathing. I was doing some sort of half coughing thing, as I couldn't breath right. This coughing was sort of synchronized with my shivering from the cold. So I turned the heater in the truck on and it subsided, though my shoulder now hurt much worse. Soon enough I needed another beer and wanted to get the trash from dinner out of the truck so out I went into the rain again. Again, I got cold and again with the chest pains, the wierd coughing thing and the shivering. This time however the warmth of the truck didn't help. I started to hyperventilate or something. I couldn't situp straight I was sort of hunched over and coughing ( sounded kind of like huffing or barking). and I begin to get a little scared as I had never hurt like that or had trouble breathing or been completely unable to control my shivering. Lori , started to get worried too, but of course being the man , I continued to tell her that I was OK, that my shoulderr just twinged a bit and that I was just cold. But I wasn't feeling any better and after a while all my symptoms started to wear on me.
I began to think I was maybe really having a heart attack. So I naturally suggested we not sleep in the tent but go find some hotel, because hotels cure heart attacks as anyone who hates doctors and hospitals and sickness knows. Now we began the 2o mile drive out of the park, Lori was driving as I was sort of curling into the closest approximation of a fetal position I could manage in the passenger seat of the truck. Every bump and turn treated me to an increase in the intensity of my half coughing and the pain associated with it. I 'knew' in the back of my mind that it was just my shoulder, and not a heart attack as my pulse was fine and it was my right shoulder that hurt. But I could'nt control my breathing and now I was really hurting and doing that half-assed coughing thing. So I began to think maybe a hospital was a better idea. I went back and forth with Lori, which must have been a real treat for her. 'Lets find a hospital,' I 'd say, ' just in case I'm having a heart attack'. 'No, lets find a hotel,' I'd say, ' I'm obviously just a little tired and cold.' We (I) opted for the hotel. I treated myself with some of tylenol and a few shots of vodka, which along with hotels cure heart attacks, and slept curled up in the fetal positon.
I woke up in the morning more or less completely cured. My shoulder was stiff but not especially panful, but Lori drove everywhere we went for the rest of the trip and even learned to row our little boat, with me lounging in the back soaking in the sun that prevailed for the rest of the trip.
22. I like to camp and I am good at it.
23. I can start a fire with one match and a small quantity of bacon grease.
I only got to go camping once this summer. It was in early June. My girlfriend and I have been going to the same spot off and on for about five years. The place is lake Moomaw which is in the Warm Springs area of Virginia, in the western part of the state. We go there because my GF insists on going someplace with bathrooms and I too, in my fat spoiled lifestyle, have come to appreciate the luxury of a toilet and hot water after a long day of fun and sun. The disadvantages of this style of camping is, of course, that there are other people around and your restricted to setting up camp on gravel tent pads.
I used to camp in the bowels of George Washington National Forest, a hundred or so miles north-east of Moomaw. That is where I learned how. That is where, like a baby duck, I was imprinted with the idea of what 'real camping' is. In GW, primitive camping is what I'd do. These camp sites are little more than a pull off along side the 'road.' The bathrooms consist of designated trees or hollows sufficiently far away from camp that you can't hear the shouts and hoots of friends and family as you try to do your business. The bathing facilites are the ice cold stream. I'd still bathe every day there , but generally at high noon, when it was hot enough that you could lay out on the rocks and recover from the shock of the cold, cold water.
Moomaw, however, has the additonal advantage of the lake. It is man made, created in the sixties, when the James river (I think) was dammed up, creating the lake behind it. It is still nice. There are beaver and you can see the remains of roads leading right down into the lake in some places which make good fodder for scarey stories, that I've been forbidden to tell anymore as they tend to scare everyone and then we have to tramp en masse to the bath rooms in the middle of the night whenever it is required.
Our trips to Moomaw have frequently been marked by really bad weather. The first time we went there, just as we pulled in, the mother of all hail storms swept through the area pummeling the area and my poor truck with golf ball ( no shit) sized iced cubes for fifteen or twenty minutes. We huddled in the truck listening to the drums of doom beat down on it's roof and talking about turning around and going home. I'm all for camping, but not so much for roughing it. The storm, coming when it did before we had time to set up, may have been a lucky thing for us though as the camp site we picked was under ankle deep water after the storm passed, so we picked another. We had a great time that trip, after a trip to the laundry mat to dry all of Lori's clothes and her and I's bedding , the only thing that got wet as a result of the trip
This summer when we went up we were again threatened by poor weather. This time it was just Lori and I. I drove the whole way up, about 6 hours the way we travel, stopping at every rest stop and gas station, loading up on candy and chips and generally goofing around a lot. On the way up my right shoulder began to hurt. This I beleive is a result of an old injury I sustained while working for years doing menial lalbor in a grocery chain and aggravated by spending considerable time working in the freezer of said establishment. It crops up every once in a while when I turn or twist a certain secret ( to me) way. Anyway, it started hurting on the way up . It usually feels like someone has pounded a rail road spike through my shoulder blade and peirced my chest. Every time I move my arm I can feel the imaginary spike grating against the bones and muscle in my shoulder. Driving made me move my arm a lot so naturally it began to hurt a lot.
We get up to Moomaw and there is a light rain falling. It isn't too bad, perhaps a bit chilly, so we set up camp, without much issue. The tent goes up, in goes our bedding, nice and dry, and I even manage to get a fire going ( though since we were'nt there for breakfast and thus didn't have bacon grease and the wood was a bit damp it took more than one match, much to my personal and private shame).
By this time, it was late afternoon and the rain seemed to be getting a bit worse so we decided to cook dinner and spend the rest of the evening reading in the tent -- no big deal. Then, of course, it started raining much harder. I had to hold this parasol thing over the coleman stove while Lori, cooked our deluxe tacos (much to complicated for rainy Half assed cooking it turns out). The tent was getting pummeled and we didn't want to eat in there so we opted to eat in the truck. This required me to go back and forth in the rain gathering up utensils and beer and such.
Soon enough I got really cold and I started to experience chest pains. I had trouble breathing. I was doing some sort of half coughing thing, as I couldn't breath right. This coughing was sort of synchronized with my shivering from the cold. So I turned the heater in the truck on and it subsided, though my shoulder now hurt much worse. Soon enough I needed another beer and wanted to get the trash from dinner out of the truck so out I went into the rain again. Again, I got cold and again with the chest pains, the wierd coughing thing and the shivering. This time however the warmth of the truck didn't help. I started to hyperventilate or something. I couldn't situp straight I was sort of hunched over and coughing ( sounded kind of like huffing or barking). and I begin to get a little scared as I had never hurt like that or had trouble breathing or been completely unable to control my shivering. Lori , started to get worried too, but of course being the man , I continued to tell her that I was OK, that my shoulderr just twinged a bit and that I was just cold. But I wasn't feeling any better and after a while all my symptoms started to wear on me.
I began to think I was maybe really having a heart attack. So I naturally suggested we not sleep in the tent but go find some hotel, because hotels cure heart attacks as anyone who hates doctors and hospitals and sickness knows. Now we began the 2o mile drive out of the park, Lori was driving as I was sort of curling into the closest approximation of a fetal position I could manage in the passenger seat of the truck. Every bump and turn treated me to an increase in the intensity of my half coughing and the pain associated with it. I 'knew' in the back of my mind that it was just my shoulder, and not a heart attack as my pulse was fine and it was my right shoulder that hurt. But I could'nt control my breathing and now I was really hurting and doing that half-assed coughing thing. So I began to think maybe a hospital was a better idea. I went back and forth with Lori, which must have been a real treat for her. 'Lets find a hospital,' I 'd say, ' just in case I'm having a heart attack'. 'No, lets find a hotel,' I'd say, ' I'm obviously just a little tired and cold.' We (I) opted for the hotel. I treated myself with some of tylenol and a few shots of vodka, which along with hotels cure heart attacks, and slept curled up in the fetal positon.
I woke up in the morning more or less completely cured. My shoulder was stiff but not especially panful, but Lori drove everywhere we went for the rest of the trip and even learned to row our little boat, with me lounging in the back soaking in the sun that prevailed for the rest of the trip.
<< Home