Funny story...I spent a weekend camping at Lake Of The Ozarks in the 80s, which was actually my first RV truck trip.
There are many beautiful things about Ozarks, perhaps the best one being the peoples’ resilience and creativity in solving problems and getting by without having access to the things we take for granted.
I, in fact, had to learn some of that craftiness myself.
Not long after we arrived, I bought a hammock at an flee market in town. I couldn’t wait to try it. It was the type with a frame but on first try by adult weight it crumbled. I realized there had been undetectable rust. No problem there was a perfect pair of trees at the campsite. Yes there was just one problem. I couldn’t find rope anywhere. I must have gone to five hardware stores. No rope to be found!
I ended up picking up some pieces of cloth and old electrical wires in a vacant lot. Now I thought I was good to go.
Thank goodness for kindness of strangers (ranger)— I settled in with a coke and the read of my book to enjoy relaxing in the hammock for the first time. Until…
BAM!
The cloth broke about 10 seconds later and I ended up on the ground covered in Coke!
Along with my newfound friends, we tried several more times to get it to stay hung, me falling on my butt several more times as well.
Two of my fellow campers and family apparently had quite the laugh watching from the window rigs and one had even taken a video of these failed attempts. Fortunately, that video got erased somehow before it was shared with the whole group.
Undeterred, I ventured back out and found some thicker cables. With those, I finally succeeded in getting that hammock hung. I even carried it around much of the later camping and hung it in my yard at home for a few years afterward with those same cables until the cloth ripped from age.
Lessons learned were that perseverance matters, always check that your hammock is stable before trying to enjoy a drink in it, and if you’re unsure, make sure no one’s watching from the window!
Nana
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