Page 12 - Leisure Living Magazine: Autumn 2020 Edition

Family Time In The Great Outdoors
By Mark Salamon PT, Humor Writer
Camping is a family tradition that began in the 1930’s when electric- ity finally made daily life resem- ble something other than camping. Since then, parents have simulated pre-technology conditions to enjoy family time together while teaching their children valuable lessons, and our family was no exception. Now that our kids are grown, I find myself reminiscing about all the great times we had, and all the skills our children learned in the great outdoors.
What better way to learn how
to survive in the real world than by
roughing it, being one with nature, and
living off the land. And what better place to do this than a crowded campground with shower facili- ties full of hungover parents, screaming children, and microbes that spend every minute of every day organizing the next worldwide pandemic. We took full advantage of this environment to teach our daughters the proper use of PPE, or Personal Protective Equipment, which included flip-flops, shin guards, goggles, N95 masks, latex gloves, sur- gical scrubs, and helmets.
And that’s not all our daughters learned. The natural world is fraught with dangerous condi- tions besides disgusting bathrooms, like freezing temperatures. So we took great care in teaching the importance of building a proper campfire while respecting campground etiquette, which states that no one else’s fire can be bigger than yours. The most difficult part is starting the fire, and the safest way to do this is controversial. Some camping experts recommend the natural method used by our prehistoric ancestors who used stones and dried grass. This is indeed the safest method because it never results in an actual fire, although it did work well in the stone age when parents had a lot more time on their hands without having to deal with PPE. But modern parents are under strict time constraints, so most opt for matches and crumpled up newspapers. In my experience, however, this was actually quite dangerous be-
12 |LeisureLiving Autumn 2020
Covid-19 has caused an increase in family camping.
cause it involved the unsafe practice of kneeling on all fours and blowing until you lose conscious- ness, which in turn led to the even less safe prac- tice of falling face first into the fire. To avoid this, I taught our daughters how to use much safer items including gasoline and a blowtorch.
Our children’s education was not complete un- til they learned the fundamentals of packing ev- erything up to go home, which often took more time than the actual trip. Performing this task efficiently without leaving behind any equip- ment or family members took practice. Equally important was the skill needed to pry the equip- ment from the vehicle when we got home, clean the vehicle and all its contents, do the laundry, and put everything away. Our family often had a hard time completing these tasks before it was time for the next camping trip, even if that was the following year. So we often employed the fol- lowing technique: kick back, relish how easy our lives are when we are not camping, and leave ev- erything in the minivan until the next trip.
Mark Salamon is a physical therapist with twenty- five years of experience making people laugh while simultaneously inflicting pain. He honed his sense of humor by raising three hilarious daughters with his wife Melissa. More advice and humor can be found on his website marksalamonpt.com.
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