Billy Bob, Joe Bob and Robert (everyone just called them “the Bobs”) decided to go camping and fishing at the coast. This being their first trip to the ocean, they were extremely excited at the prospects of catching some really big fish.

The sign at the beach noted that camping was allowed, but only vehicles with four wheel drive were allowed onto the beach. Now as everyone knows, four wheel drive is the only kind of truck that hillbillies own. Matter of fact, these boys had a crew cab pick-up with big-ole knobby mud tires.

The Bobs got to the beach around midnight and setup camp by the water. They planned on getting to bed nice and early so they could start fishing at first light. Now when I say they “set up camp”, please don’t imagine some elaborate camper or even a generic pop-up tent. These boys simply slept in the truck. One in the driver’s seat, one in the passenger seat and the lucky one got the entire rear seat to himself.

The Bobs had started drinking early the day before; to ensure that they would fall asleep early, and wake-up early. Everything had gone as planned, except the waking-up early part. Instead of waking-up with the sun, something else woke them up and that something else was shaking the truck!

Remember, I told you the Bobs had never been to the coast before, and they had no real education to speak of. The concept of high tide and low tide is something they still don’t quite comprehend to this day. They just know that when they woke up that morning and looked outside, their truck was bouncing around on the waves, and they were steadily drifting out to sea.

Don’t get discouraged folks; these are genuine hillbillies, and they know how to turn a bad situation into a good one. The mud tires on the truck were large enough that they it did not sink. The boys crawled out the sliding rear window, grabbed their fishing poles and had a reel (pun intended) good time. After a couple hours they had caught some nice triggerfish and sea bass. Then it was time to to head back to shore. They had a themselves a grand ole time putting the truck in four-wheel drive and spraying rooster tails as they slowly maneuvered back to land.

If you’re ever out around Carolina Beach, and you see three boys in the bed of a four wheel drive pickup, floating in the ocean… just wave and yell, “Yee-Haw”.

I’m fixin to tell y’all about my campin trip. I hope ya like my story.

My Ma and Pa done me this way when I was a youngin and I aim to do just as good for my youngins too.

So what I does is I loads up the truck with all the vittles we gonna need for our campin trip, put the kids in the back of the truck and straps em in good with the rope seatbelts I made myself, in the extry car seats I done fastened to the bed of the truck. Can’t be too safe, ya know. Then we drive down yonder to the backyard and we all gets out.

The youngins , they is hoopin and hollerin, I knewed they’d be excited like I was when my Ma and Pa took me a campin. I had to tell them to simmer down and help their Pa set up the tent.

So Billy Joe Jim Bob and me gets to settin up the tent when the women folk go to gatherin wood for the cookin fire.

My little girl, Sue Ellen and my wife/cousin Faye, comes back directly with some good fire wood and kindlin.

So me and Faye sits down and starts talkin while the youngins go about playin with a dead critter they done found. They always was wantin a pet, I ain’t aimin' on letting them keep this critter. They gots to throw it back like all the others when theys done.

Anyways, me and my sweetheart starts talkin about the olden days when we was just cousins and not married yet. She asks me “Eugene, was you really intendin to marry me before Pa got out the twelve gauge?” I says back to her as I always does. “I done got you expectin, a course I was gonna, dang woman!” That made her smile.

So anyways, Billy Joe Jim Bob and Sue Ellen comes runnin up with their dead critter and says “Why doesn’t we et this fer supper instead of the store bought vittles?” Well me and Faye looks back and forth at each other and the youngins and we both exclaims at the same time “Aight!”

So me and Faye both gets up out of our extry car seats and pops open another cold one. We all help make a fire and pluck what fur is left off the dead critter. Me and Billy Joe Jim Bob guts the thing and the women folk start cookin it up!

Whatever the thing was, it was mighty tasty! We all slept that night under the stars, full from the critter, happy as Christmas day, y’all!

My son here, Billy Bob Junior and I done thought of goin’ on a campin’ trip. So we packed the GMC Jimmy with campin’ essentials – beer, BBQ and bacon – and headed on out to the interstate. We drove and drove and drove. On the side of the road, we saw a sign that said Monroe Office Park. We done figured we could head over there and stay the night.

So, we park the Jimmy, grab the essentials and headed on down over to a field where a nice white gazebo stood. Bustling around the gazebo were these strange types of people I ain’t never seen before. Most of them were wearing bright, colorful outfits from the top of their heads to the tips of their toes. They sure were stinky. Not like spending the day in the barn shovelin’ manure stinky but that frou-frou, perfume-y kind of stink. Burned up our darn nose hairs!

Blinking in their ears were this gadget do-hickey that they would be barkin’ in, screaming out orders and other silly thangs while they played around with this mini-computer thing. I ain’t never seen anything like it. Others were sitting around the gazebo, puffin’ on the cancer stick, staring at us just as bewildered as we’re staring at them. Sheesh, these people sure are uptight. Back at home, we’d be sharing the leg from the deer we caught while huntin’ by now!

My son and I decide to start cookin’ some dinner. All around us, people were rushing past with bags of food from them restaurant places like McDonalds and Burger King. And almost everyone had a cup from Starbucks. Big ones, little ones, clear ones with whipped cream inside. It must be some kind of urban necessity for existence.

As the day dragged on, lots of different people came on out to the gazebo. One little lady sat down and bust into tears saying, “there has to be something better than this,” over and over and over. Another man, stepped on out and just yelled his head off – like some kind of barbarian – for one straight minute before walking away. Poor fellow. I do something like that when I bang my finger with the hammer. I feel his pain.

As nighttime fell, the amount of people in the park diminished til it was just me and my son here, Billy Bob Junior. We grabbed a couple of beers, clinked them together and thought to ourselves we sure picked an interesting place to go campin’. Nothin’ like that Hershey Park we done went to though.

"Uncle Delmer?"

"Mmm mmm."

"Psst! Uncle Delmer! Wake up!"

"Mmm mmm ... huh? Whut? Whut's goin' on?"

"Uncle Delmer, I hear noises outside the tent. I think it's a bear."

"A bear? Y'all woke me up over a bear? Hang on, I'll shoo that critter away."

Delmer Festus threw open the flap of the stick-and-tarp contraption that served as the camping shelter he shared with Ralph, his nephew from the city.

Delmer chuckled as he observed the massive black bruin snuffling through the remains of their campfire. One lousy bear, and the kid acts like World War III has broken out. You can take the boy out of the city, but you can't take the city out of the boy.

"Scram!" Delmer shouted, hurling a stick at the foraging bear. He'd done this dozens of times, a hundred times, and on every other occasion the bear had snorted and quickly retreated into the underbrush.

This time, the bear waddled over and clamped its teeth onto Delmer's boot.

"Aw, heck!" Delmer declared, swatting at the thing's head. "Git lost, will ya? Dumb varmint! Ralphie, boy, git out here for a second."

Ralph, who had never been camping in his life and who had spent the previous evening listening to some newfangled gadget called an eye pod, nudged open the tarp, peeked outside, and squealed like a hog on its way to the chopping block.

"Aw, quit yer howlin'," Delmer said, hopping on one foot as the bear slowly tugged him toward the tree line. "Just dig around in my bag and find the bear repellant."

Ralph frantically pawed through the garbage bag that served as his uncle's overnight pack, pushing aside novelty belt buckles, stale pork rinds, and NASCAR memorabilia, until he finally withdrew a duct-taped squirt gun with "Bair Repelint" scrawled on the side.

"Now what?" Ralph bleated.

"Spray it at yonder bear," Delmer suggested. "Hurry — it just ate my big toe. Lucky I got seven left."

Ralph took aim and squeezed the trigger. A searing concoction of Delmer's own devising — a combination of Kentucky moonshine, hot sauce, tobacco juice, and porcupine pee — streamed out and hit the bear directly in the snout. It roared in protest and dropped Delmer like a hot potato, turning tail and bounding swiftly into the trees.

"Uncle Delmer, are you okay?" Ralph said, snatching up his cell phone. "I'm calling 911."

Delmer examined his mangled boot, dripping with blood and foul-smelling bear repellant.

"Nah," he replied. "A fish hook and a few inches of filament, and I'll have this sucker stitched up like new. Now then, I'm gettin' hungry. Y'all reckon we can scare up a possum or two?"

When I was a kid, my dad took me camping every year during the summer. He used to teach me things I’ve remembered since, and I won’t soon forget. Those were the best summers of my life. Every time we came back from camping I promised myself I’d do it with my boy when I got older.
But my only son Billy Bob was born with some problems. He can’t go outside in the sun ‘cause his skin can’t take it. I had to make his bedroom special when I built our cabin so he had no windows. He can’t even play outside with the other kids ‘cause of his sickness. So every day when I come home we pay inside. I almost gave up on taking him camping, but my daddy didn’t break none of his promises and I don’t plan on it neither.
So every summertime, when the other kids are hiking and swimming and horsing around, me and my boy pitch in a tent his room. We set a mattress in the tent and get a lantern that we take at night so he can go out. While the sun is out we stick in the tent. I teach him to tie knots, and which berries are good just like my dad did. But we roast our marshmallows on the gas stove and go fishing in the tub. And that’s good enough for him, so its good enough for me.

"Pack all the gear inta the back o' the truck!"

"Alrighty Bill I got the rifles and tent, let's go huntin'!"

Bill and Jeff jumped into the truck and took off down the road trying to make it to the camp ground before dark.

"Now I say this can't be the right way Bill," moaned Jeff
"I'm tellin' ye it is now shattup and load that gun! I see a moose and I ain't stopping if ye miss his head."

Jeff poked the gun out the window as they reached 100KPH. he squeezed the trigger and the bullet flew into the moose's side.

"Good job you idjit!" yelled Bill, "you done scared him and now he's on the highway."
"Sorry man but I don't aim very well inna moving truck!" Jeff shouted back at him.

Bill yanked the wheel to the right and just managed to miss the moose but his truck flew off the road and became totaled in the ditch.

"Well now what do we do?" asked Jeff as he crawled out of the truck.
"It's gettin' near dark so we should tent up and get to the campsite tomorrow." replied Bill

Jeff got the tents out and starting setting one up in the ditch.
"Well what're you doin' mister?" asked Bill.
"I'm setting up the tent, it's safer down here"
"Aw no it ain't, we're setting up camp in the middle of the road so that people can see us when they're drivin'"

Jeff saw Bill's point so he took up the tents and they spent the night in the middle of the highway. When they woke up they got out of the tent to find a huge tractor trailor inthe ditch on top of their truck.

"Well it's a good thing you were smart enough to get us to set up here," said Jeff,"If we was in the ditch that truck woulda killed the two of us."

“Timmy go get uncle/dad and tell ‘im to get the sheet from ahr room” Ma Ma screamed to her eldest.
“I aim to when yaw stop squawking!” Timmy bellowed back and stomped to the trailer.
Stooping down she scooped up her youngest baby Bell and started carrying her to the top of the hill. It was a special year this year it was baby Bell first Speets’s annual family camping trip to the top of the trailer park. The plan was to go all out this year. As well as getting brand new sleeping bags to share, Timmy had also picked up some fresh road kill that morning. It was hard letting go to the old sleeping bags they were the ones Ma Ma used when she was a youth but after years of sweat and that incident with Jimmy using it in the mud as a magic carpets they had to get new ones. Ma Ma looked across the trailer park, she could hardly hear the screaming of couples from the trailers from here. She watched Timmy heaving the camping supplies of alcohol and most of the kitchen up the hill.
“Ma Ma am gonna git some wood,” looking up Ma Ma saw her second youngest Jimmy going towards the wood,
“What ‘bout Billy Bob?” she scowed
“Naw, he’s too lickered up al’ ready. He can hardly stand let alone git wood, I wil’ go.” Ma Ma shrugged and started to sweep the area they were going to camp in.
With a clank of pots and pans Timmy chucked the stuff down. “Don’t you chunk the stuff down like tha’, now do I need ta bag or can ya’s sta’ ta make a fire.”
“I was gonna do it naw, don’t get in a hissy. Oh I told Pa bout that sheet.”
An hour later, dragging the sheets from Ma Ma’s room Billy Bob stumbled up the hill.
Later when the camp was set up, the licker was flowing and the fire was roaring the family settled round it for there sing–a-long.
“Wa shal’ we sing Ma?” hiccupped Billy Bob who by this point just slumped against the log instead of sitting on it.
“Kum by ya!” squeaked jimmy what set off a raw of laughter.
“Naw dun be silly luv, how bout ‘I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy’!” and as Ma and the kids sang to the night Billly Bob passed out as usual and started snoring but as usual the rest of the Speets had another good camping trip.

The sheets had been scratchy, the mattress lumpy and the young child on the bed next to him had been crying all night, desperately clinging to her mother for some shelter from the cold. Trying to get to sleep, his mind drifted back to a day almost a life time away and yet only 3 years had passed. He was thinking of his own two daughters, his son and of course Tessa, his wife. They had shared such a beautiful world before the fire, the fire caused by next doors constantly smoking father who had thrown his cigarette out of the back door, only to have it caught in a draft and blown onto their carpet through an open window. Such a random occurrence and yet it had cost him his wife and three beautiful children. The insurance hadn’t been enough to renovate his house or even buy a new one, just enough to cover the funeral expenses and so ever since he had been living on the street. The winters were cold and the summers warm and he very rarely managed to get a decent bite to eat. The pain of the accident, however, was just too much to convince him of returning to a normal life though and so he lived the life of a hobo, shunned by all of society, other than the simple brained youths who asked hopefully if he had any substances that would surely get him a room in a prison if he was found with them.

But last night, he had been talking. The man on the bed opposite him had been in a similar situation. A drunk driver had hit a bus, which had skidded into the front wall of his house which in turn fell onto his wife and parents, crushing them. The insurance hadn’t been enough for him either and he had given up. He had been on the streets for five years when a particularly bad winter had hit. All the shelters were full; no-one was accepting any extra lodgers and he had been stuck on the freezing streets.
“That’s when it hits you lad, the temptation becomes too great. You’ll want release. The only place you’ gonna get release is drugs. I been on ‘em for four years now.” The old man had suddenly changed, looking deflated and sad he said “Don’t make the same mistake I did lad. Go back to the house, live there, get a job and renovate the place. You’re young, you got your whole life ahead of you!”

So that night, he took the old mans advice, and slept in his own house for the first time in over three years.

Hill Billy Ben was really excited when he brought home his new tent. It had cost him quite, I said quite a lot of money.

"But where should I take it, Ma?" he queried to his mother.

They, being the hillbillies they are, brainstormed a few ideas. They came up with so many that Billy Ben wrote the best ones down.

They came up, I said came up with:
Farmer Jims Pig Slaughtery
On top of the trash heap
or
on the top of the new waterslide.

But none a these were good enough. But then...

"I got it!" said Billy Ben. "How about that big ol' rock in the middle of 'dem raging rapids?"

"Wee DOggey you got it my boy!" cried his Ma.

So Hill Billy Ben set out to the rapids with his tent. He had come up with a foolproof plan to get into the middle of the rapids.

First he would walk further upstream with his inflatable raft. THen he'd jump on and slowly drift towards the rock. THen he would jump onto the rock as he went by.

So Hill Billy Ben did, I said did all this quite well and landed smoothly on the rock. If only he had remembered to bring his tent.