A Small Summer Story

When you are raising a large family you do not have a lot of extra money but one summer my kids lucked out. At that time I only had 7 children and when the then youngest started first grade I went to work filling shelves at the new Woolworth store in the local mall. We were lucky that year, no one got sick or hurt, so all the doctor bills were caught up.

The kids had been over at the neighbors playing and came home pretty broken hearted. The neighbor kids were going camping, their mom and dad had bought a pop up camper, and  of course my children wanted one too. After explaining that we just could not afford one and that we could have fun staying home, the kids with their long faces just shrugged and walked away.
When I went to work the next day the store manager came up to me and asked  if would be interested in a  permanent job, and I said no because had to be home nights and week ends for my children. Well he kept coming and asking me, so I finally said well if I could be the freight receiver I would consider it. To my surprise he said yes. And I found myself with an 8 to 5 five days a week no nights, no weekends. And I had a nice raise. When the week of the store opening happened it was just in time for the Fourth of July weekend. And what do you know, but that they had sleeping bags on special, and with my store discount I could afford to buy each one of the children one. Then I thought what good was sleeping bags without something to sleep in, and on lunch break I mentioned it to a friend and he said, well our local sporting good store rented out some of their tents,

After work I stopped in the store and sure enough they had a 12 foot by 15 foot tent for rent, and I do not know if the guy was just being nice but he said a special on the rental for 25.00 for the entire weekend. I quickly figured out that I could rent the tent and buy the sleeping bags without spending needed money for other payments.
So there I am with a tent and sleeping bags and not much else, On the way home I passed a rummage sale and I noticed a large cooler, so I stopped and sure enough the cooler was huge and in good shape and they wanted a few dollars for it, So now I had the tent, the sleeping bags and the cooler. When I told my husband what I did he threw a fit, said damned if he was going camping. After he cooled down and thought about it, he said. He would go camping but the kids would have to have all their work done, then he would go.

To my surprise he came home with a Coleman lantern and a small camp stove.
So early the next morning it was off to the county park that was some 20 miles away.
I had packed that cooler with containers of ice and frozen meat, layering it as I would use it and with ice on top and a heavy quilt over it I figured it would do. The funny thing is when it was time to go home, that cooler turned out to be a blessing for the neighbors that needed to keep some of their food cold, so after four days that old cooler was still cold. All it needed was ice and an old quilt to keep it out of the sun.
Things sometimes are just meant to be, and that was one time it came together. Because when I returned that tent, the manager of the store asked me, if I would consider buying that used tent and he made an offer I jumped at. And we spent many summer weekends out at that lake in that tent.. I did not keep the job at Woolworths after that summer, I needed to be home for the kids, they came first. When we are all together on Holidays, I will  hear the  now grown up children telling stories about camping.  They like  to tell the one about snipe hunting or when the storm came and blew the tent down and we all ended up squeezed  in the neighbors pop up camper with 12 children and four adults in it, all laughing our heads off.