A tough lesson: free doesn't always mean fun

My high school buddy Larry Duby’s parents owned a nice 15-foot runabout with a 35 horsepower Evinrude that we may as well have owned. Larry’s dad had bought the boat because that’s just one of the things that wealthy folks did where I came from.

Slip rental, fuel, soft drinks, ice, snacks were all just another minor monthly check like country club membership and automobile service at the Lincoln dealer to Larry’s dad.

Like many boat owners, Larry’s parents had used the craft probably half a dozen times. But Larry and I and whichever of our female classmates we could wrangle took full advantage of said runabout without ever spending a penny of our own money. See why my infatuation with boats continued to grow? All fun and no expense are very attractive.

Over the next few years playing music and seeing the country took over and my association with watercraft went on sabbatical.

Then circumstance found me living in Knoxville sharing an apartment with my old buddy, Chris. We were dating the two girls who lived in the apartment next door. Convenient, huh?

Chris’s girlfriend, Linda worked as a legal secretary and girl Friday for a high-profile attorney. He was very good at playing the “Aw shucks” East Tennessee country lawyer but was as slick as any Madison Avenue attorney when he opened that beat up old leather briefcase. And he spent his money on lots of toys.

Other than sports cars and motorcycles, he owned a very nice walk through windshield runabout which sat under a carport in his back yard 50 weekends a year.

And the thing about outboard engines is that they need to be operated on a regular basis to keep the moving parts lubricated and to prevent harmful fuel deposits from clogging up those tiny orifices in their carburetors. Guess who volunteered to help out with that function?

Our first outing was to be a weekend on Norris Lake. The lake is vast and very secluded, being mostly surrounded with forestland and miles of uninhabited shoreline.

There are numerable uninhabited islands scattered along its length and our intention was to set up our base of operations on one of those islands.

Having been an itinerant musician traveling and living in a Ford van with my road manager, a large German Shepherd named Ebo, I owned some camping gear.

I had a two-burner Coleman stove and a two-mantle gas lantern, an air mattress, a sleeping bag and a pillow.

Chris borrowed a large canvas tent from an old college buddy, the girls packed their bathing suits, some bedding and we headed out on a sunny Saturday morning.

We stopped by an A&P for beverages, ice and groceries. Within an hour and a half, we had launched the runabout filled with the four of us, our gear and Ebo perched on the bow.

We found the perfect island about an hour upstream with maybe 20 feet of shoreline between the water and the trees where we tied off the boat and unloaded our gear.

We had filled the fuel tanks back at the dock and were ready to try out that pair of skis. The July sun was out and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, perfect weekend weather.

We skied, we chased waterfowl, we made bologna sandwiches and drank adult beverages. After lunch the girls decided they would float around on the air mattresses.

Linda and Sharon went off into the woods to change into their bikinis while Chris and I set up four lawn chairs and drug in some firewood. So much for setting up camp. We opened a couple more cans and plopped down in the shade.

Within a few minutes the two of us had drifted off to la-la land. The girls soon dozed off themselves on the air mattresses out in the water. After a couple of hours, they woke us and we lit the charcoal grill and got the burgers going.

The sun was just going down. I mentioned that the girls sure looked like they had gotten some sun. Quite a bit actually.

We enjoyed a few more beverages, then decided we had better get the tent set up. It was a big canvas rig rolled up tightly and bound with nylon rope. We untied the rope and spread it out on the ground.

It was kind of old looking but didn’t appear to have any holes. It also didn’t appear to have any tent poles or stakes. The four of us just stood there over that big expanse of canvas with our mouths hanging open.

But the night was warm and the sky was clear, so we decided to just sleep under the trees. Then sometime around 11 p.m. something woke me from my slumber.

I was itching. I was itching all over. Soon Chris sat up, then the girls. We were all clawing at our arms and legs and everywhere. Chiggers! The woods were infested with them.

Not only had we all become a midnight snack for chiggers, but chiggers and second-degree sunburn had turned the girls into very disgruntled company. Luckily, I had an extensive first aid kit. Unluckily, it was several miles away in my van.

We dragged our sleeping gear down to the red clay shoreline trying to escape the varmints in the woods. As we lay there scratching, the western horizon lit up like the fourth of July with a spectacular display of lightning.

It only took 15 minutes for the torrent to reach us. We tried dragging the tent over us, but the slope of the shoreline funneled the cold rainwater right under the canvas soaking all our sleeping gear and us.

It was not only the most miserable night of our lives, but it was also the longest, coldest, slowest, early morning boat ride back to the van. Ebo thought it was a great weekend.

So, what did we learn from all this?

Free doesn’t always mean fun.