The Pork and Beans Trips

“What in the world are you THINKING,?” she was saying to Barbara. “Haven't you read The Bridges of Madison County?"

     “No, actually, I haven't,” Barbara replied, still smiling.

     Her brow tightly knitted together, the lady just said, “Well, maybe you should!” and shaking her head, walked away.

     Many years ago, in the early days of our marriage, when Barbara was still yet a teen, Barbara readily accompanied me on my “Roughing it in the wilds” adventures, for a time. Two particular trips brought that to an end.

     Once, when we still lived at Fayetteville, we drove over to War Eagle Mills. We opened the farmer's gate and drove down to that beautiful river, which the farmer allowed at that time. This was before the days of the  big festival now held there. We found a beautiful spot, we fished, built a fire, cooked, ate, and just generally had a great day. That night, we rolled out our sleeping bags, and since Barbara was not really a “sleep out under the stars” type of person, as I was, I made the concession of stretching a tarp over us. I slept well, as I always do at such a place. As dawn broke, Barbara was awakened by a big, slobbery kiss – right on the lips. No, not by me, this is not that kind of story. A big old hound dog.

     “We need a tent,”  Barbara stated firmly, “If we're going to keep doing this!” I went to Walmart, right behind our house, the next day. I found a perfect one. But I didn't buy it. A purchase that major, in those days, was something for us both to discuss long and hard. We were pore' folks.

     Tommy Beard was one of my best friends and fishing buddy. He was a student majoring in business, and he was destined to become a financial wizard, managing and investing money for several large companies. But to me, then, he was just another kid, newly married to his wife Pat, and he loved to go along with me in search of the catfish. While Barbara and I were still agonizing over that tent purchase,  Tommy said to me one day, after taking me aside, “You need to scrape together every penny you can. A company up the road is about to make their first stock offering. This is a once in a life time opportunity. This company is going to really, really go places.”

     "Tommy,” I said, “ We live in a trailer park. We don't have money!” He didn't say any more. Just walked away, shaking his head.

     Barbara and I made our decision that night. We would buy that tent. The next day, I walked into Walmart, one of only a small handful in the world at that time, and bought a six million dollar tent.

     Twenty years later, I was reading the Sunday paper one day. I saw an article about a large company from Arkansas, detailing what the initial stock offering for that company was now worth. The $36 dollars I paid for that tent translated into six million dollars at that time. The company? Walmart. 

     Several years later, When he knew I had decided to leave coaching, and was looking for a teaching job, Tommy again advised me. “Walmart has just started a new program, training up store managers. No telling how much you could wind up making, if you get in that program on the front end.”

     I chose teaching. Story of my life. A pore' boy, destined to die a pore' boy.

     Anyway, let me get back to my story. Shortly after we bought that tent, we went back to the War Eagle River, camping once more. The river bank was pretty well grown up in bushes, but I did find one clear place. Kinda in a swag, but the sky was clear, no rain tonight. We now also had air mattresses;  I had to make Barbara as comfortable as possible, to keep her roughing it with me.

     About midnight, dark clouds rolled in. It came a “Toad Strangler.” (That's hillbilly for “A major rain.) I slept through it. I always sleep my best, out in the wild. Until Barbara elbowed me sharply in the ribs. “My air mattress is floating around!”

     By daylight, Barbara had had all she wanted of “roughing it in the wild places,” and she has never weakened or wavered from that position in 45 years. The next day she declared, “If you are going to keep doing this, you'll have to go alone!”

     Well, that set the stage. Barbara knew I have to return to the wild places periodically, to recharge my batteries. It's as necessary for me as breathing. I grew up a loner, and I am far more at ease and at home in the wilderness. It would be many years before “roughing it” was not the only option for such trips.

     We worked out a deal. I would do my thing, in the wilds, while she would do her thing. That often turned out to mean, she would visit her family, go on car trips with her sister's family, or, later, her and one of our kids or sisters went on a cruise.

   

     The Pork and Beans trips were born. I planned my trips very carefully. Wildlife photography was my main goal. Hunting and fishing lost it's attraction before these trips began. Barbara didn't like wild meat, but the clincher was, she didn't want to cook it either. If we were not going to eat it, I didn't want to kill it.

     Not spending much money was rule number one. I cooked every meal, I never ate out. I  cooked only the least expensive foods, so pork and beans was a major staple, along with potatoes and

spam, if I really wanted to live high. I could pull over to a park picnic table, whip out my little burner and skillet, and have a meal ready in five minutes. Barbara and I adopted, early on, a little but very effective rule to live our lives by: Always live below our means. That rule has been good to us, and enabled us to do many things that pore' people like us usually never get to do. I camped only in the least expensive places, usually National Forest Campgrounds, or maybe Walmart's parking lot.

Continued in a week or so. Thanks for reading!