At this writing, the date is Monday, October 14, 2013.

It’s Columbus Day.

I know this because the banks are closed and the markets are open.  That means that as a cubicle occupant ensconced in the financial services industry, I had to work today.  On the plus side, my little section of the communal mail box which resides a few houses up the street wasn’t littered with unwanted flyers from local grocers and electronics superstores.

This last weekend, it rained like the Dickens (excuse my language) here in San Antonio.  I knew it was going to rain, and I’ll tell you why.

It wasn’t from the forecast.

It wasn’t from watching the weather map on my smart phone (iPhone 5s, 32GB, black & charcoal gray hunkered down in a black Otterbox).

Nope.

Instead, the reason I knew it was going to rain goes back to a phrase I say all of the time.  “When you see the sun come up in the east that many times in a row, you just learn to expect it there.”

Whether you want to believe it or not, there was a time in the not too distant past where the San Antonio chapter of the TharpSter clan used to pack it up every Columbus Day weekend and go camping with Wifey’s side of the family.  The trips were typically to go celebrate her brother’s birthday.  Various siblings on her side, as well as uncles, aunts, and cousins, would gather up a load of all things camping related, throw it all in the truck or car (95 Saturn wagon) and head out to a state run campground in order to participate in a grand old pastime of roughing it in the woods.

Does a bear crap in the woods?  Of course it does. Does a Tharp crap in the woods?  No, typically the campgrounds we frequented discouraged such activity in favor of using the public restrooms which were provided for all paying occupants and their Sloppy Joe wielding parties.  Roughing it was subjective you didn’t have to worry about wiping your tush with a poisonous leaf or a sock.

We only went camping five times though.

In fact, this last weekend marks the tenth anniversary since we did it last.

Care to guess why?

It doesn’t matter, because I’m going to tell you anyway.

Columbus Day weekend, 1999 – On the first year we all went camping, we decided to go to South Llano River outside of Junction in the Texas Hill Country.  Upon arriving on Friday night, we encountered some of the wet stuff.  It continued through the next day and didn’t let up until it was time go home.  On the way home that Sunday, yours truly received validation that a 95 Saturn SW1 could be pushed up over 90 mph.  That validation came in the form of a speeding ticket from the good people at the Texas Department of Public Safety.  They have really cool black and white cars with flashing lights, high tech communication equipment, and a device to determine how fast a 1995 Saturn SW1 can go in a 65 MPH zone.

Columbus Day weekend, 2000 – This year, the decision was made to go to Inks Lake outside of Johnson City.  Junior was 6 and Juniorette was 4.  Wifey’s twin brought her new boyfriend.  Other uncles and aunts appeared.  So did the rain.  So did the cold.  Ladies and gentlemen, there is nothing that will make the nipples poke out and the testicles re-ascend faster than cold wind blowing in off of a lake.

Ok, that was a pretty wild claim and patently false as describing cold spots and their collection affects on various body parts.  Wind blowing off of a lake in Texas fails the test against other frigid phenomena.  Even still, it was pretty frickin’ cold.

As much as I could deal with the cold having grown up in Wyoming, Juniorette was having nothing of it.  She came down with something between a nasty sinus infection and an ugly cold which just made her miserable.  By Saturday afternoon, we threw in the towel and beat Hell out of there to get Juniorette into a better climate.  We left the rest of the family along with our camping gear there for others to use.  Strange enough, I avoided the reminder that the ole SW1 could achieve great and potentially deadly velocity.

Columbus Day weekend, 2001 – The fall of 2001 was an especially memorable one in the wake of the 09/11 attacks which had taken place just a month before.  It was that particular weekend in which we went back to South Llano River to take part in a few days of heavy downpours as we waited on news about a possible launch of US activities in Afghanistan.  Aside from trying to stay updated on what we were about to do to the Taliban, the most poignant instance from that weekend which resides in my skull involves a revelation to the Mother-in-Law that I had allowed her only grandson to watch The Simpsons on occasion.  Wifey wasn’t very happy about it either.

The only reason any of it came up was because we had watched an episode where Homer had invented a makeup gun.  After shooting Marge in the face with it, she looked in the mirror and told Homer he had the gun set on ‘whore’.  My impression of Marge making that statement was dead-on.  The kids loved it, and mentioned it while we were all standing around a covered picnic table watching the rain poor down.  Obviously, I was compelled to repeat the statement.  The audience loved it, including one of Wifey’s cousins.  That particular cousin would land a part on a reality series some 11 years later in the role of Jace Robertson on Duck Dynasty.

Columbus Day weekend, 2002 – Prior to our leaving town en route for Garner State Park that next year, we got a call from Wifey’s brother with a request.  “Bring duct tape.”

Well duh.  Of course I’m going to bring duct tape.  It’s a universal adhesive which should be taken everywhere.  It works on everything but duct work.  I think it’s actually state law to have some on you at all times here in Texas.

Now ideally, I expected the demand for duct tape was in order to do some field repairs on a tent with a possible hole in it.  After all, it was probably going to rain that weekend. All things being equal, there were a couple of tents in the near vicinity which had holes in them, but said holes were more like assholes.  The ability of duct tape to patch up an asshole is limited and short term at best.

It turns out the duct tape was needed for the raccoons which frequented the area.  One would think the most effective use of duct tape on a raccoon to keep the little varmint from getting into your cooler full of Sloppy Joes, Oscar Mayer Lunchables, marinated chicken wings (hot and ranch), and cold cuts, would be to capture the little thief and duct tape his ringtailed ass to a tree.  But no, we took the less enlightened route by wrapping the duct tape excessively around our coolers so as to seal the lids shut, and then wedged them up under the picnic table benches.

I don’t remember much rain that weekend, but I do remember one specific sound during the nights we were there.  As we huddled in the tent, we heard a great deal of commotion outside at the picnic table.  Since I only have my hearing to rely on, I can only describe the events of those nights as such.

A thunderous heard of raccoons (weighing about 100 lbs each) arrived and showed absolutely no regard or consideration for the fact that people were trying to sleep near by.  They liberated the bumper jack from a nearby Ford Bronco manufactured in the early 70’s, and jacked the table up in order to dislodge the cooler from under it.  After spending about 10 frantic minutes of trying to locate where the edge of the duct tape was so that they could carefully remove it from the cooler, a more resourceful member of the felonious confederacy produced a switch blade and cut the tape off.  They then tore into the Lunchables (primarily Junior’s, because he still bitches about it to this day), the cold cuts, and a loaf of bread.  They didn’t tear into my wings, because they obviously were familiar with the dangers of eating raw chicken.

Columbus Day Weekend, 2003 – Now keep in mind, that the Camping Gods hadn’t really been very appreciative of our past attempts to go enjoy the holiday weekend in the great outdoors.  Between the excessive rain, the speeding ticket, the knife wielding raccoons, and the makeup gun set on ‘whore’, we had become pretty dubious as to whether these trips were going to continue for much longer.  The one benefit is that I had just traded in the nitrous infused Saturn wagon four months earlier for a truck.  Packing up and hauling our camping gear was going to be easier this year when we went to Choke Canyon.

Things were different this time around, primarily with the cast of characters who appeared.  This time, it was fewer family members and more friends of the Brother-in-Law.  As I said before, the ability of duct tape to patch up an asshole is limited and short term at best.  I won’t go into a great deal of details about the events of that weekend which led me to make that characterization, suffice to say that they contributed to my discontinuation of the annual camping trip.

None the less, we made it through Friday night and into early Saturday night.  Right around the time we took the wings off the grill, it began to rain.

Hard.

And it rained.

Hard.

Harder.

We abandoned the tents and moved to our trucks.

And it continued to rain.

Hard.

Early the next morning, we emerged from our trucks and found that it was still raining.  It wasn’t hard as a few hours before, but it was considerable.  The campground was flooded at that point after over 12 hours of rain.  A meeting of the Board of Directors of the TharpSter organization was immediately convened, and a resolution was passed to pack it up and get out of there.  The process took all of about 15 minutes to throw all of our crap in the truck, cover it with a tarp and get out of there.

On the drive home, all of the electronics in my brand new truck went generally nuts.  The environmental controls couldn’t make up their mind.  The windshield wipers worked intermittently, even though I wasn’t using that feature.  The turn signals flashed left and right, even though I was going straight.  The radio kept starting and stopping.

The next day, after we had been home for 24 hours, I took the truck back to dealership and described the problems I had encountered.  They found no issues with the electronics in the truck.  They couldn’t recreate the scenario.  Fortunately, I’ve never encountered the same issues with that truck that I ran into so long ago.

Do you know why?

It’s because I learned my lesson that time and discontinued camping on Columbus Day weekend.

It wasn’t just me though.  The entire practice was discontinued within the family for that particular weekend.  Various members of the family have gone camping since.  We even loaned our tent out to one of the sisters and her family.  We have yet to get it back, and we certainly haven’t asked for it.  They can have it.

No water off my back.

Or on my back, for that matter.