Aging is a wonderful thing. I don’t know why so many people fight getting older. It offers so many advantages, not the least of which is wisdom. Perhaps you’ve heard people say, “if I only knew then what I know now.” Let me tell you, it is absolutely true. And I can prove it with a little story about camping.
To set this up, I grew up in a large family in western New York. Me and my brothers were all Boy Scouts. Our troop made a point of doing some sort of outing every month. And every February, the outing was always something known as the Klondike Derby. It was an event in which we all camped out for the weekend and, for all intents and purposes, played in the snow.
Old People Are Just Old
So for my first Klondike Derby, I was barely a teenager. I might have been 13 or 14. At that time in my life, old people weren’t important to me. They were just old. And like every teenager who has ever lived, I thought my parents were old.
The thing about old people, at least to my teen brain, was that they didn’t know anything. They were behind the times. They couldn’t relate to modern life because they had stopped living it years ago. So when my ‘old’ father, a man who had decades of experience with the Klondike Derby, told me to take my backpack instead of a smaller gunny sack, I didn’t listen.
My backpack had an aluminum frame that was secured to the waist with buckle straps, thus transferring some of the load to the hips. The gunny sack had no frame. I wanted to use it because I assumed it would be lighter. I didn’t know that having no frame meant carrying the entire weight on my back. About 20 minutes into the hike from car to campsite, I discovered my father was right.
The Ground Is Cold in Winter
Something else my father told me: I would be smart to grab my share of the free hay as soon as we set up camp. If I didn’t get some before it was gone, I would be left sleeping on the ground. And guess what? The ground is cold in winter.
Well, I didn’t listen. I figured only weenies needed hay underneath them. Yet my father was right once again. I have never been so cold in my life. It took me weeks to warm up after that bone-chilling weekend.
Now I Listen
So what have I learned? I am not the smartest guy in the room. When a friend recommends that I use Rollercam tie down straps instead of bungie cords to secure a gas grill on the back of a trailer, I listen. When an older neighbor who has lived in my community much longer than I have warns me about bears rummaging through the trash, I listen.
Whether it is buckle straps, bears, cold winter camping trips, or backpacks with aluminum frames, I have learned that I always have an opportunity to learn something. That is one of the things getting old does for you. It makes you painfully aware of just how little you actually know.
As a young man, I thought I knew everything there was to know about life. As an older man, I realize just how stupid the younger me really was. If I only knew then what I know now I probably wouldn’t have made so many dumb mistakes over the years. But that’s the way it goes.
