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Back when I was young and poor, me and my regular deer hunting buddy decided that it was a mild enough autumn that we'd sleep in the back of the half-ton, under the cap. Heck, we had two air mattresses so no biggie, right?
WELL!
The weather and wind turned on us and next thing you know it is blowing and snowing and we were having quite a few wobbly pops so that meant lots of exits to go pee. Which of course let out all the warmth we had managed to build up inside the cap. Man we were miserable and the beers were no help, of course.
There was a camp up the road and we considered going in (it wasn't locked) but thought that wouldn't be very nice to go into someone's camp uninvited, so we stayed where we were. About midnight a truck showed up, shined a flashlight at us and kept going to the camp, then returned.
"Rough livin', boys," the big old guy from the truck said. "Why didn't you just go in the camp?"
"It ain't our camp," I said.
"Damn straight," he thundered. "It's my camp. And if'n I'd a' caught yas in it, I'd have skinned ya then and there. Come with me," he said.
We followed him to the camp where he lit the oil stove on, full boil, told us to make ourselves at home, and then left.
We revelled in the heat -- it was so GREAT! But then it started getting hot. Then we started sweating our ***** off. As God is my witness, we couldn't find anything to regulate the heat, and we didn't dare shut the stove off because we didn't know how to light it again! Never seen an oil stove in our lives.
I can still see us today, even though it was more than 30 years ago, standing buck naked in the doorway to that camp, legs spread, arms outstretched and gonads blowin' in the wind, the snow flying horizontal it was so windy, trying to cool off!
I've often wondered about that guy, and what he musta thought when he got back to the camp and discovered that six months worth of oil had all been burned in one night.
Sadly, the fella passed away not long ago.
His name was John Dunham. He was deputy chief of police in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, during his workin' days.
A fine fellow if ever there was one.
R.I.P. John.
Sorry about your oil.
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