Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2013 11:19:25 -0500 From: DB Subject: Camping with Ralph Chapter 1 – Camping with Ralph This story is dedicated to Danny, a 14-year old who is the actual author of the story "Camping with Ty," his first story, which shows considerable talent as a writer that needs to be encouraged and developed without exploitation. To Danny, I have sent you several emails through Marc this week but it appears they are not being forwarded to you. If you wish to contact me you can write to me at Dionysus@email.org This is the first chapter in a story about a sexual coming of age, a story of struggle and pleasure, of fear and confusion, told in the first person. It is fiction but it is based in reality. Because it is fiction it is true to the extent that it reflects experiences with which the author is familiar and to the extent that it resonates with the reader's own experience. More than that I will not say. Future chapters will be individual complete stories but they are all connected because they are all related in some way to camping. I expect they will be uploaded every week or so as I get time to adapt them to this site. We must put in the traditional warning that if you are offended by sexual acts between minors, or if stories of sexual conduct or misconduct are illegal or forbidden to you, be warned that the story you are about to read contains graphic details of sexual activities between young males. If you have comments you can contact the author at Dionysus@email.org * * * It was 1949. I was 12 years old with my 13th birthday coming up shortly and had been a Boy Scout for about six months. I knew a few boys in the troop, primarily those who went to my school or church or lived in my neighborhood, but I had very little contact with the other boys in the troop outside of Boy Scout activities. Ralph was both one of my friends and a member of my Scout troop. He lived about a mile from me, not a very difficult walk, but he lived in a different elementary school district so I had not gotten to know him very well until we were in junior high school. I walked or rode my bike to his house, but we had not been at each other's houses very much. I was attracted to Ralph. It was not a consciously sexual attraction that I gave much thought to, but I liked him and when I was with him there was just a bit of excitement that ran through my body. I was not physically aroused, or at least not conscious of any physical arousal, and in those innocent days of the late 1940s I would not have understood that there was a connection between a slight erection, which occurred pretty often anyway during puberty and physical closeness to another boy that I was happy to be with. Ralph was a nice kid, friendly and easy to spend time with. He was stocky, slightly shorter than me, with thick black hair, a crew cut, dark complexion, and just a wisp of black peach fuzz under his nose. His body was well developed for a 12 year old. He was a better than average student and a decent athlete. He was also a cute kid. He was quiet, easy-going, reserved, gentle, not rambunctious as some of the other kids were, and I liked being with him. We got along well because we had a lot of interests in common. He attended Kramer Junior High School with me although we were not in the same classes. He lived just far enough away so that it was only on occasional weekends that we could get together, traveling to each other's homes on our bikes. We would play board or card games, ride our bicycles, play catch or a pickup game of softball with neighborhood kids, typical kid stuff. Spring came early to Washington, DC in 1949. Winters are relatively mild and short in the DC area and end with an explosion of new life as buds emerge on the trees, early flowers bloom, and the fresh smells of spring fill the air. It was a welcome change from the cold, gray and damp winter. I looked forward to April because it not only brought the promise of warm weather but also because one of my favorite pastimes became possible again—camping. I was interested in everything outdoors, fishing, hunting, hiking, and riding horses, and I dreamed of adventures in the woods and on the trail. I don't know where that interest in outdoor activities came from since I had never lived in a rural community but it seems to have emerged as something important to me about this time. Admittedly I had not fished, or hunted, or ridden a horse or any of those other outdoor activities except camping, but camping had become my escape from life in the city. It was also something I looked forward to. The Boy Scouts had taught me the fundamentals of life in the woods, camping, how to build a shelter from inclement weather, how to build a fire to keep warm on chilly nights even if the woods were wet and even if I did not have matches, finding my way if lost, caring for routine and serious injuries—so I had a lot of confidence in my ability to handle myself in the woods. Scouting did a lot for my self-confidence. I knew how to take care of myself. I was not afraid to be alone in the woods, although I preferred to be with a friend. Ralph and I decided to go on a camping trip, by ourselves, just the two of us. It was probably my idea. I was not generally a leader in a group of my friends, but when I wanted to do something with a friend I tended to be the initiator. We could be gone only one night because I had a regular morning paper route delivering the Washington Post that required getting a substitute to cover the route for me if I was away, so getting away was always difficult to arrange. My brother Joe agreed to do the route for me. We would leave Saturday morning after I got back from delivering the morning paper. Joe would deliver the Sunday papers. Ralph and I would return home Sunday afternoon. An overnight camping trip appealed to me not only because I liked camping but also because being alone with Ralph would be fun. I would be with him for most of the weekend. I was naïve and innocent in the most basic meaning of what "innocent" means [free from guilt through lack of knowledge of evil and having no evil intent, assuming that what transpired could be called "evil"]. I had no ulterior motive, just that I liked being with him. Sleeping in the same tent with him, next to him, seemed something exciting to look forward to. I had learned well the Scouting motto, "be prepared," and so in the few days before our camping trip we planned our menu and assembled what we would need. I had my own pup tent, military style, obtained from an Army-Navy Surplus Store. World War 2 had not been over long and there were plenty of stores selling surplus military material. I had a sleeping bag. I had an official Boy Scout mess kit that contained everything needed to cook a meal, all packaged in one small compact container with a case and carrying strap. We settled on hamburgers for dinner on Saturday, and a complete Sunday breakfast of eggs, bacon and pancakes. We carried water in canteens strapped to our belts along with our hunting knives. In our knapsacks we carried the first aid kit, halazone water purification tablets to use if we got water from a stream or well, a change of clothes and our food. We carried our sleeping bags and the pup tent lashed on top of our knapsacks. Ralph carried the trenching shovel, we both had our hunting knives strapped to our belts, and I carried a hatchet. It was a pretty heavy load for a 12-year old on a long hike. On Saturday morning about 9 a.m. we met on South Capitol Street and headed south toward the city line separating Washington from Maryland. Hiking into Maryland we took the state highway heading south down Indian Head Highway, then turned southwest onto the access road to Fort Foote State Park. It was a long hike, about 9 miles each way, and it took us about three hours to hike that distance. There was very little traffic after we crossed the city line into Maryland and continued down the highway. When I thought about it as I was writing this story (but it obviously did not occur to me at the time) this was a pretty audacious excursion for two 12 year olds to undertake. I suspect that parents would not permit that trip today because of concerns about the ills that could confront kids alone in the woods from accidents to child molesters. I think that concern is overblown. I never had an accident I could not handle and I never heard of child molesters nor ever had anyone attempt to molest me. Still, if I had sons today I seriously doubt that I would let them go that far away on foot alone and unsupervised to a state park on an overnight trip. Kids had a great deal more freedom in those days than we give our kids today. We arrived at Fort Foote about noon, set up camp along the shore of the Potomac River, ate lunch, scouted the area, gathered firewood for the evening, dug the firepit and laid the fire, pitched the tent, arranged our sleeping bags, explored the area (which was an old Civil War site) and played in the woods for the rest of the afternoon. Dark comes early in April (this was before Daylight Savings Time was instituted), and we wanted to get dinner out of the way while it was still light, so we built our fire and let it burn down to coals so it would make a good hot but steady fire for cooking. In addition to hamburgers, which we ate without buns, we had potatoes and I do not remember what else. We had plenty of firewood, and for safety we had cleared a fire safety zone around the fire pit. The woods served as our latrine, and yes, we were prepared with toilet paper. The stories about using leaves for toilet paper were mostly just stories. With the darkness came a bit of a chill, so we huddled around the fire and talked and tried to scare each other with ghost stories. That could only last so long, so we let the fire burn down a bit, set up a reflector to send heat into the tent and huddled in our sleeping bags. I had a small battery-powered lantern, which I hang from the tent post by the entrance, and it gave a nice glow into the tent interior. We knew from our training not to sleep in our clothes, because they get damp and can be very chilly in the morning. We stripped to our underwear, each in our own sleeping bag. As it got colder outside, and as the fire burned lower and less heat was reflected into the tent, Ralph said he was cold. So, I said to Ralph, I have an idea. Why don't we zip the sleeping bags together into one large sleeping bag? Then we can huddle together and keep warm. Ralph thought that was a good idea. So we zipped the bags together. [At that time, I do not know about now, sleeping bags were designed with a full zipper around three sides specifically so that bags could be zipped together.] It is amazing how quickly body heat will warm up a sleeping bag and it was not long before we were comfortably warm. We talked for a short while. I rubbed his shoulders, then slid my hand down his back and rubbed the back of his legs. Then it was his turn to rub my back, and he did and it felt very good. I could feel my growing erection and I became aware of the connection between my slightly erect penis and his hand on my back. We were comfortable and warm in the soft glow of the lantern. I got him to turn over on his back so I could rub his stomach and chest. His skin was very soft and I rubbed my hand over his warm chest and stomach very slowly. It felt good to me and it obviously felt good to him. Then I rubbed his legs and brushed my hand up and down his thighs. Carelessly I brought my hand across his crotch and I could feel his bulge. He was also partially erect. For a few minutes I brushed my hand very lightly across his boxers and over his bulge. He was breathing a bit faster, and he got tense but did not resist and slowly he relaxed. His passivity emboldened me to see how far I could go. Taking a bit of a chance I reached for the waistband of his boxers and slid them down. He stiffened noticeably but he did not say anything or move to stop me. In the dim light of the lantern as I slipped his boxers down I could see that he had a small amount of black pubic hair just coming in, and a beautifully shaped but stubby erect circumcised penis. I ran my hand down his abdomen, touching his penis ever so gently. He shuddered but lay still. I played with it briefly but I was feeling uncomfortable and guilty—I was aware vaguely that this was something I should not be doing. I wanted him to touch me but I did not dare ask him and he did not volunteer and if he was interested he did not show it. I was trapped in that awkward space between the hormone-driven desires of a pubescent kid and the consciousness that I was crossing some sort of line that I should not cross. We never spoke about it again, or did anything sexual with each other again. I think we were both uncomfortable with what had happened and did not know what to do about our feelings. It was too awkward to discuss it openly. It was easier to just ignore it and pretend it had not happened. We never had another opportunity to spend the night together, and eventually we drifted apart. We were both tired from the exertions of the day and we fell asleep quickly. I woke up first. It was just getting light, probably about 5:30 a.m. I was shivering in the cold air. I stuck my head outside the tent and was surprised when cold white snowflakes slid off the open tent flap onto my face. Two inches of snow had fallen overnight and covered the ground with a white blanket. I didn't know if I should be excited or annoyed, but I was cold so I stuck my head back inside the tent and lay down again in the sleeping bag but my movement had caused Ralph to wake up. "It snowed during the night," I said. "I'm cold. I think we need to get dressed and get a fire going." Ralph agreed quickly and we both pulled on our long pants, put on our shirts and sweatshirts, laced up our boots, and stepped out into the wet snow. Our wood had been piled to keep it dry underneath. We pulled out some small branches to serve as kindling and soon had a good little fire going, although it was pretty smoky until it got hot enough to completely consume the wet wood. We soon had breakfast underway—eggs and bacon in my frying pan, pancakes in Ralph's pan. There is nothing like the smoke of a campfire and the smell of bacon intermingled with the smoke to stimulate the appetites of a couple of young campers. We were hungry and it did not take long for us to finish up the breakfast, clean up our pans, and straighten up our campsite. The April sun warmed the air quickly and the snow melted by ten o'clock. We assembled our gear and began our hike back toward our homes. It was an uneventful return trip. We were tired. The packs on our backs seemed heavier on the way home.