Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2013 11:19:25 -0500
From: DB <dionysus@mail.org>
Subject: Camping with Ralph

Chapter 1 – Camping with Ralph

This story is dedicated to Danny, a 14-year old who is the actual author of
the story "Camping with Ty," his first story, which shows considerable
talent as a writer that needs to be encouraged and developed without
exploitation.  To Danny, I have sent you several emails through Marc this
week but it appears they are not being forwarded to you.  If you wish to
contact me you can write to me at Dionysus@email.org

This is the first chapter in a story about a sexual coming of age, a story
of struggle and pleasure, of fear and confusion, told in the first person.
It is fiction but it is based in reality.  Because it is fiction it is true
to the extent that it reflects experiences with which the author is
familiar and to the extent that it resonates with the reader's own
experience.  More than that I will not say.

Future chapters will be individual complete stories but they are all
connected because they are all related in some way to camping. I expect
they will be uploaded every week or so as I get time to adapt them to this
site.

We must put in the traditional warning that if you are offended by sexual
acts between minors, or if stories of sexual conduct or misconduct are
illegal or forbidden to you, be warned that the story you are about to read
contains graphic details of sexual activities between young males.

If you have comments you can contact the author at Dionysus@email.org

* * *

It was 1949.  I was 12 years old with my 13th birthday coming up shortly
and had been a Boy Scout for about six months.  I knew a few boys in the
troop, primarily those who went to my school or church or lived in my
neighborhood, but I had very little contact with the other boys in the
troop outside of Boy Scout activities.  Ralph was both one of my friends
and a member of my Scout troop.  He lived about a mile from me, not a very
difficult walk, but he lived in a different elementary school district so I
had not gotten to know him very well until we were in junior high school.
I walked or rode my bike to his house, but we had not been at each other's
houses very much.

I was attracted to Ralph. It was not a consciously sexual attraction that I
gave much thought to, but I liked him and when I was with him there was
just a bit of excitement that ran through my body.  I was not physically
aroused, or at least not conscious of any physical arousal, and in those
innocent days of the late 1940s I would not have understood that there was
a connection between a slight erection, which occurred pretty often anyway
during puberty and physical closeness to another boy that I was happy to be
with.

Ralph was a nice kid, friendly and easy to spend time with.  He was stocky,
slightly shorter than me, with thick black hair, a crew cut, dark
complexion, and just a wisp of black peach fuzz under his nose. His body
was well developed for a 12 year old. He was a better than average student
and a decent athlete.  He was also a cute kid.  He was quiet, easy-going,
reserved, gentle, not rambunctious as some of the other kids were, and I
liked being with him.  We got along well because we had a lot of interests
in common.  He attended Kramer Junior High School with me although we were
not in the same classes. He lived just far enough away so that it was only
on occasional weekends that we could get together, traveling to each
other's homes on our bikes.  We would play board or card games, ride our
bicycles, play catch or a pickup game of softball with neighborhood kids,
typical kid stuff.

Spring came early to Washington, DC in 1949.  Winters are relatively mild
and short in the DC area and end with an explosion of new life as buds
emerge on the trees, early flowers bloom, and the fresh smells of spring
fill the air.  It was a welcome change from the cold, gray and damp winter.
I looked forward to April because it not only brought the promise of warm
weather but also because one of my favorite pastimes became possible
again—camping.  I was interested in everything outdoors, fishing,
hunting, hiking, and riding horses, and I dreamed of adventures in the
woods and on the trail.  I don't know where that interest in outdoor
activities came from since I had never lived in a rural community but it
seems to have emerged as something important to me about this time.

Admittedly I had not fished, or hunted, or ridden a horse or any of those
other outdoor activities except camping, but camping had become my escape
from life in the city.  It was also something I looked forward to.  The Boy
Scouts had taught me the fundamentals of life in the woods, camping, how to
build a shelter from inclement weather, how to build a fire to keep warm on
chilly nights even if the woods were wet and even if I did not have
matches, finding my way if lost, caring for routine and serious
injuries—so I had a lot of confidence in my ability to handle myself in
the woods.

Scouting did a lot for my self-confidence.  I knew how to take care of
myself.  I was not afraid to be alone in the woods, although I preferred to
be with a friend.  Ralph and I decided to go on a camping trip, by
ourselves, just the two of us.  It was probably my idea.  I was not
generally a leader in a group of my friends, but when I wanted to do
something with a friend I tended to be the initiator.  We could be gone
only one night because I had a regular morning paper route delivering the
Washington Post that required getting a substitute to cover the route for
me if I was away, so getting away was always difficult to arrange.  My
brother Joe agreed to do the route for me.  We would leave Saturday morning
after I got back from delivering the morning paper.  Joe would deliver the
Sunday papers.  Ralph and I would return home Sunday afternoon.

An overnight camping trip appealed to me not only because I liked camping
but also because being alone with Ralph would be fun. I would be with him
for most of the weekend. I was naïve and innocent in the most basic
meaning of what "innocent" means [free from guilt through lack of knowledge
of evil and having no evil intent, assuming that what transpired could be
called "evil"].  I had no ulterior motive, just that I liked being with
him. Sleeping in the same tent with him, next to him, seemed something
exciting to look forward to.

I had learned well the Scouting motto, "be prepared," and so in the few
days before our camping trip we planned our menu and assembled what we
would need.  I had my own pup tent, military style, obtained from an
Army-Navy Surplus Store.  World War 2 had not been over long and there were
plenty of stores selling surplus military material.  I had a sleeping bag.
I had an official Boy Scout mess kit that contained everything needed to
cook a meal, all packaged in one small compact container with a case and
carrying strap.

We settled on hamburgers for dinner on Saturday, and a complete Sunday
breakfast of eggs, bacon and pancakes.  We carried water in canteens
strapped to our belts along with our hunting knives.  In our knapsacks we
carried the first aid kit, halazone water purification tablets to use if we
got water from a stream or well, a change of clothes and our food.  We
carried our sleeping bags and the pup tent lashed on top of our
knapsacks. Ralph carried the trenching shovel, we both had our hunting
knives strapped to our belts, and I carried a hatchet.  It was a pretty
heavy load for a 12-year old on a long hike.

On Saturday morning about 9 a.m. we met on South Capitol Street and headed
south toward the city line separating Washington from Maryland.  Hiking
into Maryland we took the state highway heading south down Indian Head
Highway, then turned southwest onto the access road to Fort Foote State
Park.  It was a long hike, about 9 miles each way, and it took us about
three hours to hike that distance.  There was very little traffic after we
crossed the city line into Maryland and continued down the highway.

When I thought about it as I was writing this story (but it obviously did
not occur to me at the time) this was a pretty audacious excursion for two
12 year olds to undertake.  I suspect that parents would not permit that
trip today because of concerns about the ills that could confront kids
alone in the woods from accidents to child molesters.  I think that concern
is overblown.  I never had an accident I could not handle and I never heard
of child molesters nor ever had anyone attempt to molest me.  Still, if I
had sons today I seriously doubt that I would let them go that far away on
foot alone and unsupervised to a state park on an overnight trip.  Kids had
a great deal more freedom in those days than we give our kids today.  We
arrived at Fort Foote about noon, set up camp along the shore of the
Potomac River, ate lunch, scouted the area, gathered firewood for the
evening, dug the firepit and laid the fire, pitched the tent, arranged our
sleeping bags, explored the area (which was an old Civil War site) and
played in the woods for the rest of the afternoon.

Dark comes early in April (this was before Daylight Savings Time was
instituted), and we wanted to get dinner out of the way while it was still
light, so we built our fire and let it burn down to coals so it would make
a good hot but steady fire for cooking.  In addition to hamburgers, which
we ate without buns, we had potatoes and I do not remember what else.  We
had plenty of firewood, and for safety we had cleared a fire safety zone
around the fire pit.  The woods served as our latrine, and yes, we were
prepared with toilet paper.  The stories about using leaves for toilet
paper were mostly just stories.


With the darkness came a bit of a chill, so we huddled around the fire and
talked and tried to scare each other with ghost stories.  That could only
last so long, so we let the fire burn down a bit, set up a reflector to
send heat into the tent and huddled in our sleeping bags.  I had a small
battery-powered lantern, which I hang from the tent post by the entrance,
and it gave a nice glow into the tent interior.

We knew from our training not to sleep in our clothes, because they get
damp and can be very chilly in the morning.  We stripped to our underwear,
each in our own sleeping bag.  As it got colder outside, and as the fire
burned lower and less heat was reflected into the tent, Ralph said he was
cold.  So, I said to Ralph, I have an idea.  Why don't we zip the sleeping
bags together into one large sleeping bag?  Then we can huddle together and
keep warm.

Ralph thought that was a good idea.  So we zipped the bags together. [At
that time, I do not know about now, sleeping bags were designed with a full
zipper around three sides specifically so that bags could be zipped
together.] It is amazing how quickly body heat will warm up a sleeping bag
and it was not long before we were comfortably warm.  We talked for a short
while.  I rubbed his shoulders, then slid my hand down his back and rubbed
the back of his legs.  Then it was his turn to rub my back, and he did and
it felt very good.  I could feel my growing erection and I became aware of
the connection between my slightly erect penis and his hand on my back.

We were comfortable and warm in the soft glow of the lantern.  I got him to
turn over on his back so I could rub his stomach and chest.  His skin was
very soft and I rubbed my hand over his warm chest and stomach very slowly.
It felt good to me and it obviously felt good to him. Then I rubbed his
legs and brushed my hand up and down his thighs. Carelessly I brought my
hand across his crotch and I could feel his bulge.  He was also partially
erect.

For a few minutes I brushed my hand very lightly across his boxers and over
his bulge. He was breathing a bit faster, and he got tense but did not
resist and slowly he relaxed.  His passivity emboldened me to see how far I
could go. Taking a bit of a chance I reached for the waistband of his
boxers and slid them down.  He stiffened noticeably but he did not say
anything or move to stop me.  In the dim light of the lantern as I slipped
his boxers down I could see that he had a small amount of black pubic hair
just coming in, and a beautifully shaped but stubby erect circumcised
penis.  I ran my hand down his abdomen, touching his penis ever so gently.
He shuddered but lay still.  I played with it briefly but I was feeling
uncomfortable and guilty—I was aware vaguely that this was something I
should not be doing. I wanted him to touch me but I did not dare ask him
and he did not volunteer and if he was interested he did not show it.  I
was trapped in that awkward space between the hormone-driven desires of a
pubescent kid and the consciousness that I was crossing some sort of line
that I should not cross.

We never spoke about it again, or did anything sexual with each other
again. I think we were both uncomfortable with what had happened and did
not know what to do about our feelings. It was too awkward to discuss it
openly.  It was easier to just ignore it and pretend it had not happened.
We never had another opportunity to spend the night together, and
eventually we drifted apart.

We were both tired from the exertions of the day and we fell asleep
quickly.  I woke up first.  It was just getting light, probably about 5:30
a.m.  I was shivering in the cold air.  I stuck my head outside the tent
and was surprised when cold white snowflakes slid off the open tent flap
onto my face.  Two inches of snow had fallen overnight and covered the
ground with a white blanket.  I didn't know if I should be excited or
annoyed, but I was cold so I stuck my head back inside the tent and lay
down again in the sleeping bag but my movement had caused Ralph to wake up.
"It snowed during the night," I said.  "I'm cold.  I think we need to get
dressed and get a fire going."

Ralph agreed quickly and we both pulled on our long pants, put on our
shirts and sweatshirts, laced up our boots, and stepped out into the wet
snow.  Our wood had been piled to keep it dry underneath.  We pulled out
some small branches to serve as kindling and soon had a good little fire
going, although it was pretty smoky until it got hot enough to completely
consume the wet wood.

We soon had breakfast underway—eggs and bacon in my frying pan, pancakes
in Ralph's pan.  There is nothing like the smoke of a campfire and the
smell of bacon intermingled with the smoke to stimulate the appetites of a
couple of young campers.  We were hungry and it did not take long for us to
finish up the breakfast, clean up our pans, and straighten up our campsite.

The April sun warmed the air quickly and the snow melted by ten o'clock. We
assembled our gear and began our hike back toward our homes.  It was an
uneventful return trip.  We were tired.  The packs on our backs seemed
heavier on the way home.