DFO 807-413 July 1979

1. SOME DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS TO CAMP BY CANDLELIGHT OR GAS LANTERN or even battery light‚ or to carry your water for a kilometer, or to have to carry your pot some great distance to dump it in the only available toilet—or hole that you've dug in the ground‚ if all else fails! And so there's a lot more physical labour & good exercise & activity to camping than there is to normal house or apartment living.

2. SO YOU WILL FIND THAT CAMPING IS A VERY HEALTHFUL, HAPPY, DELIGHTFUL LIFE, REALLY! I love it! We love it! We've always loved it!—Sometimes it can be hard & sometimes you might even feel like it's almost unbearable & unendurable, but you still survive! When we finally got to Texas that last winter on the road, with 125 of us camping out mostly in tents & in sleeping bags, it was cold, bitter cold!—And it rained & rained & rained!

3. WE THOUGHT IT WOULD NEVER STOP RAINING! Until finally there was about 3 or 4 inches of water on the ground—not just the ground was soaked, but water was standing on the ground in big puddles & lakes, & the poor kids were sleeping in soaking wet tents & getting sick, & it was just virtually impossible!—Don't get yourself in a scrape like that, like we did!

4. WE'D CAMPED IN THIS TOO-LOW-LYING CAMPGROUND BY A RIVER, where the ground was too low & too level & didn't have sufficient drainage‚ so the ground got so soaked the water just stood on it in lakes! It was a miserable place to make into a campground! I think the Systemite that designed it probably never camped out, he just saw it was a pretty place by the river with trees, but he certainly didn't realise that you have to have good drainage in a campground to keep your tent & your sleeping equipment & your feet dry! (So we moved to TSC ranch!)

5. THAT IS ANOTHER VERY VALUABLE THING YOU WILL FIND VERY HANDY—A COLLAPSIBLE OR FOLDING COT of some kind to sleep on off the ground! When I was a kid they used to call them army cots because they used them in the Army‚ these old wooden-frame cots with a piece of canvas stretched on them, & they folded up to about half the size of a suitcase, or a round bundle about 8 inches in diameter & a meter long. But they were heavy as lead & heavy to carry‚ but at least they kept you off the wet ground & you could sleep dry if you had something over you.

6. OF COURSE‚ NOW, THEY'VE GOT THESE VERY LIGHT ALUMINUM-FRAMED COTS with a piece of strong light plastic material stretched taut within the frame. It folds up into a very small space that we would have just been absolutely delighted about when I was a kid, instead of those big heavy wooden army cots that we had to fold up. My Daddy taught us how to fold them up, so we each had to always fold our own cots & get them ready for loading when breaking camp.

7. THANK GOD MY DADDY HAD SPENT SOME TIME IN THE ARMY & as a National Guard & learned something about camping out & hiking & camping equipment, & he loved it! He loved to have our little family camp out‚ & we loved it! It's really a great life! I think it's a great life! Thank You, Lord! Any of you families that have missed camping out have really missed something & you ought to try it sometime!—You may have to!

8. IT'S CALLED THE GREATEST ALL-FAMILY HOBBY!—CAMPING OUT! THE ULTIMATE ALL-FAMILY SPORT!: Family camping is about the only sport in which everybody in the Family can take part! It's a great game, & everybody can play it, & everybody can have a part, & everybody wins & nobody loses! PTL! Hallelujah!—And everybody does it! It's almost a status symbol that you own a tent or trailer & camping equipment! In fact, it can be pretty expensive, too, in the United States & western Europe!—Even in Arabia!

9. IT'S AMAZING HOW IT CAN MOUNT UP, JUST THE BAREST MINIMUM OF CAMPING EQUIPMENT! You'll find out that even sleeping bags cost something, & air mattresses too‚ & even the smallest tent is amazingly high–priced sometimes! Although the one that Maria & I first camped out in only cost us $25 at Sears, & it could be rolled up in a very small package & stuck in the trunk of the car! Of course, it was just barely big enough for her & me to sleep inside—our heads touched one wall & our feet touched the other & our sides touched the other two! We had these inflatable air mattresses with sleeping bags on top‚ or a double one, so we could feel & find each other!—Ha!

10. IT'S AMAZING HOW MUCH FUN YOU CAN HAVE IN A SLEEPING BAG, MATES! It gives you quite a sexy bag, sleeping outdoors under the trees & the stars in the wild! You have a sort of wild‚ animalistic‚ savage feeling sexually! It always makes me feel sexy when I'm camping out. We used to like to go out under the trees in the woods & lie down on the grass or the pine needles or hay & go to it! It's lots of fun!

11. THERE'S JUST SOMETHING EXCITING ABOUT OUTDOOR SEX that gives you a wild savage feeling that makes you very sexy!—It's very exciting—especially with the danger of being discovered by other campers—or discovering them—that even makes it more exciting! We used to have lots of fun that way, particularly out camping. So, camping can even be more fun, & sex can even be more fun if you have it in God's great thrilling outdoors!

12. IT MAKES YOU FEEL LIKE ADAM & EVE out on the grass under the trees in the first Garden of Eden! You're getting back to nature & back to God's creation & back to God‚ & back-to-back or front–to-front! So, even sex is more fun outdoors, out camping. Everything is a little harder, of course, but when that comes to sex, that's good!—Ha!

13. BUT EVERYTHING CAN BE A LITTLE MORE DIFFICULT TOO, like cooking & carrying water & hewing wood & walking miles to the toilet or whatever, or driving miles for your food. But it's lots of good exercise & healthful living & fresh air & sunshine, & a happy, virtually carefree life!

14. THERE'S A GREAT SENSE OF FREEDOM ABOUT CAMPING! You're not bound by the System nor your environment. You're not tied to the water faucet or a light switch or a gas valve, & you're not imprisoned inside of four walls‚ but you're free! You're outdoors!—And if you don't like your neighbours, you can always move! If you need a change of scenery, you have a tent or a trailer & can travel!

15. YOU'LL PROBABLY EVEN EAT BETTER, simpler & more natural foods with a ravenous outdoor appetite from all that vigorous outdoor exercise!—With no frills & fancy stuff! Therefore you may even have a better diet & save time, without all that fancy baking & sweet stuff! Besides, you won't be able to bake because you don't have an oven! Very few trailers or campers have ovens, & you will even cook as little as possible, because cooking can be difficult.

16. SO CAMPING OUT IS BETTER IN ALMOST EVERY WAY!—Unless you live in some kind of an unbearable climate where it's bitterly cold & wet or scorchingly hot & dry! But if you live in a fairly moderate, temperate climate, even when it's cold, you can keep warm even in your little tent! Maria & I camped out in September near New York in a tiny little tent for three weeks, & did our cooking out over an open fire, living out of our car, & it was lots of fun, we enjoyed it!—And it saved lots of money!

17. THERE'S JUST SOMETHING ABOUT BREAKFAST COOKED OVER AN OPEN FIRE, that smell of frying bacon & eggs & good coffee made outdoors, it just always seems to taste better!—Or a good evening meal, we even roasted our meat over the open fire! There's nothing like a good hunk of meat that's been braised or grilled over those glowing coals!—Especially if it's wood coals, it has that certain flavour that just nothing else seems to have! Not even home-cookin' can compare to camp-cookin'!

18. IT'S JUST ABOUT THE GREATEST LIFE IN THE WORLD TO BE A CAMPER & live outdoors, & it certainly is healthful! I was brought up that way a good deal of my life, & my kids were brought up that way a good deal, & maybe that's one reason why we're all good & healthy, thank the Lord! It's a simple life with a simple diet & not too many pressures or tensions or strains, & has a lot of freedom.

19. ONCE YOU GET YOUR EQUIPMENT, IT'S ALSO AN EXTREMELY ECONOMICAL WAY TO LIVE, just about the most economical way there is to live! I noticed even before we left the States that a lot of the older couples retiring on their social security pensions were buying campers to live in, because they could live much more economically in a camper, camped out, than in a house or apartment. Rents for camping spaces are much less than renting apartments or houses with expensive utilities.

20. THE CAMPING FEE IS USUALLY VERY SMALL OR EVEN FREE in many of the U.S. State & National Parks‚ & even City & County Parks. They frequently let you camp free of charge! Even if it's a luxury space with all hookups—lights, water & sewage—your utilities are small & few, so they don't cost you much. You have virtually no taxes, tiny rent‚ few utilities & a minimum of food & clothing. You can't have very much clothing, because you don't have much place to put it & you just can't carry a lot! And you have better health & fewer medicine & doctor bills.

21. SO YOU CAN SAVE YOUR HEATH & YOUR LIFE & YOUR WIFE & YOUR WEALTH ALL THE WAY AROUND IN CAMPING! It's really the healthiest, freest, most economical way of living there is! Bedouins & Gypsies have done it for thousands of years & survived!—And some are still doing it! The American Indians did it for thousands of years until the white man came to America & ruined things! Many natives, savages & primitive peoples of the world—millions of them—still live that way—camping out nearly all their lives, & surviving very well!

22. ABRAHAM, ISAAC & JACOB LIVED IN TENTS ALL THE DAYS OF THEIR LIVES!—Think of that!—The great Patriarchs, forefathers of both Jews & Arabs, never knew what it was to live in houses, but lived in tents all the days of their lives!—Tents! Not even trailers or caravans or campers!—Just tents!—All the days of their lives!—Not just on a vacation, not just on a trip, but all their lives!—And their first church was a tent, the Tabernacle‚ made of skins & poles!—Their own homes were tents made of skins & cloth & poles & ropes & stakes & rugs etc. Some of those sheik tents in Arabia are luxurious‚ with thick carpets & beautiful tapestries‚ very commodious & roomy, big enough for the sheik & his whole harem!

23. SO CAMPING OUT & TENTING IS NOTHING NEW!—IT'S ONE OF THE OLDEST WAYS OF LIVING! (To M&M's new Baby Techi:) Now, what are you fussing about, huh?—Techi says she wants to go camping! I got her all hepped up about it now‚ & she wants to go right now! At the moment, she's camping out on her Mama's bosom, & getting her natural food the natural way, thank the Lord! So camping can be economical, healthful & free!—Ah, freedom! R U READY?—LET'S GO!

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family