Late Spring 1972

By Frank Baltazar

Late spring 1972, a bunch of us guys are going on a camping/fishing trip, a trip that my brother-in-law Willie and our families had taken countless of times, this time it’s a guys thing, Willie’s young son, Jesse, is also making the trip, my brother Mando and other brother-in-law Danny are among a bunch of guys going in two pickups/campers. Danny had never gone camping with us before, so when I called to invite him, he said yes and ask.
“ What do I need to take as far as food is concern”
“Danny, we’re going to camp and fish for 3-4 days, so bring what you think you’re going eat and drink in those days”

We met at my place on Friday morning, Willie arrives early to help load my pickup/camper, Mando and Danny arrived about the same time. Since Willie did do all the cooking for our group, he was in charge of loading up the food in the camper, he would get it all together and load it up so that he would know where everything would be at.
“Danny, where is your food?’
“Right here, Willie”
Willie gets a small box from Danny with half dozen eggs, half pound of bacon, cold cuts, half a loaf of bread, six pack of beer and a choice piece of steak, Willie looks at me and shakes his head.
“Danny, is this all the beer you brought?”
“Well, yes”
“Watch this”
Willie drank all of Danny’s beer in no time.
“Willie, you drank all my beer!”
“Well, now your need to buy some more”
Danny bought a case of beer!.

We head north on Highway 395, we stopped at Little Lake Hotel/Bar to meet the other guys and to shoot some pool and drink beer, Little Lake Hotel/Bar was, it has since burned down, in the middle of nowhere, we walked into the bar and it was empty, Ernie, one of the guys in the other camper notice an old piano in a corner and ask the barmaid if he could play it.
“Go ahead, it hasn’t been played in years”
Now, Ernie can play a mean Boogie Woogie, after he played a few notes people were coming out of the woodwork, all desert rats, after Ernie played some tunes and we played some pool, drank beer, we left.

Some hours later we arrive at McGee Creek Campground where we made camp. At sundown Willie goes inside the camper to get dinner ready for our group, Willie took longer then usual to cook dinner, finally he opened the camper door and yells.
“Come and get it”
We all get in line as Willie starts passing out the plates with the grub, when Danny gets his plate, he looks at it, and sees a pork chop, he looks at Willie.
“Willie, where’s my steak?”
Rubbing his belly Willie goes.
“Yum, Yum!”
He ate Danny choice steak!, that's why it took him so long to get dinner ready for the rest of us.

After dinner while we’re around the campfire drinking beer and tequila I see Willie trying to chop up a good size log with what looked like a Boys Scouts axe, Danny sees him too.
“Willie, what are you doing to my axe?”
“Danny, here’s what I think of your axe”
Willie throws Danny’s axe in the fire, Danny almost had a heart attack. Willie told me late that he had already broken the handle.

After a while Mando and I ran out of tequila, let me say here that this was the first time drinking with my one and only brother, he had just return from Vietnam, so yes we were hanging one on, running out of the agave, we decided to go across the street to the McGee Creek Lodge & Bar to get some more tequila.

After first refusing the owner of the lodge/bar agree to sell us a bottle of the agave that was a few shots short, we gave him 20 bucks for it, found a table to sit at, as Mando and I sat drinking the owner’s 15 year old daughter would come to wipe our table clean and down a shot, she got drunk and so did I, I passed out and was drag back to the camper ruining my brand new cowboys boots.

Next thing I remember was when I woke up next morning in the top bunk of the camper next to little Jesse, he was wet, I was wet, who pissed on who?