Today was the second-to-last day at Y Camp for Sweet
Daughter, and they planned a cook-out at George Washington’s Birthplace. That
only meant 40 miles out of my way, round trip, but what the heck. I showed up a
little after 4:00 and the grill was going. They were cooking hot dogs over a
third of an 8 lb. bag of charcoal and … hadn’t thought to bring any implements.
They did have Matchlight charcoal AND lighter fluid (two is one!), so maybe
that made up for it. Then I noticed the director trying to move hot dogs around
with … a plastic picnic knife.
I told her I had a small multi-tool in my purse with pliers
on it if she wanted to use it. She looked at me funny, for some reason. So I
offered her my pocket knife. Then I just
offered to take over the grilling if she’d like. I also pulled two deep tin
dishes out of my car to hold the cooked hot dogs. Just so you know, I do not usually grill. I’m
never making that much food at once, or feeding that many people. Adding more
charcoal when you can’t remove the grill was interesting. As was the fact that
it was impregnated with go-juice.
I got some interesting reactions. Some shrank away – one kid
in particular said “is that a POCKET KNIFE?!!11??” while skimming past the hot
grill. And another stood at the prescribed safe distance and said “Hey! Is that
a Gerber?” (It was.) “My first knife was a Gerber! Got any SOGs? Those are my
favorite!” (I do.)
Sixty hotdogs later, my very hot knife was returned to my
pocket. Thank goodness for the plastic on the handle.
After that, kids who had permission to go wading with their
shoes on got to go fishing. I found that one way of hushing the loud adults who
were countermanding the instructions of the park ranger was to inform them that
they may be standing in poison ivy. That distracted them for a bit.
And the view over the creek was lovely.
