Thursday, August 22, 2013

Field Trip

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.



 

 

5 comments:

  1. Nice! :-) Love the response to the parents too! :-) You go Lady!!!

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  2. One of the first things my Dad taught me as a wee youngster was 'never leave home without your pocket knife'. I've never had to use it to grill hot dogs for a bunch of kids tho. Good show!

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  3. I wish I'd had you onlongon the field trips I went on!

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  4. The college kid I hired for summer help this year had never owned a pocket knife. An immediate trip to the surplus store fixed that. He may grow up to be an engineer, but there is no doubt in my mind that he will never be without a pocket knife again. I don't even understand how people get out of bed without a pocket knife.

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  5. I do hope and trust, Ma'am, that you did not stick your steel into the fire for too long and interfere with its temper.

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