My family liked to camp in groups. We once belonged to a camping club called Kolbe Campers. In 1968, my father was elected president of the organization. He was responsible for organizing the summer outings to exotic campgrounds called McFeely's, or Sutter's, or Camp Dearborn. He put together, or my mother did, a holiday party for the kids at the Kolbe RV and Camper dealership. He also hosted an off-season square dance for the adults. That year they came home with buttons that said ' I danced in Hell...Michigan!'
On the weekends we weren't obligated to the Kolbe club members, my family liked to travel with more family or friends who weren't in the Kolbe club because they hadn't purchased a trailer from Kolbe, a major condition to belong to the club.
A favorite destination for family camping trips was Bell's Bay State Park in northeastern Michigan up near Charlevoix. The campground was on the shore of Lake Michigan. It was near a nuclear power plant we used to visit for an afternoon. There was a movie about the benefits of nuclear power. The plant handed out free comic books about the new energy. Afterward, we'd drive into Charlevoix for lunch and walk around town.
One summer when I was eleven or twelve, the family staked its lakeside lots at the campground. The roster that weekend included us, my mother's brother and his family, some additional friends, and my mother's brother's brother-in-law and his family, which seemed to include about a dozen kids.
For whatever reason, my mom decided to take all of us kids down to the shore to do a little rock hunting. The line behind her was long. She seldom looked back to check on those behind her but always seemed to know exactly where everyone was and if she didn't, she stopped walking and called all of us around her.
After about forty-five minutes, one of the boys from the large family started griping about looking for rocks. He wanted to go back. My mother was way down the beach.
"This is dumb and boring," the boy said. "I want to go back."
"You better ask my mom," I said.
"She's way down there."
I looked where he pointed. I looked where we came from down the beach. Even I wasn't sure where we had come out on the beach.
"Do you know the way back to the camp?"
"Yep."
"I'll tell my mom."
Ten minutes after he left, my mom called us around her. She immediately knew the boy was missing.
"Did anyone see where he went?"
No one had except me but I dared not say I had been the one to tell him to go.
My mother marched us back. She gathered the adults. Told them what had happened. My uncle's brother-in-law was not happy with my mother. My uncle notified the park rangers who notified the sheriff's department who notified the national guard. I'm not exaggerating. Pretty soon the campground was a hub of activity as people fanned out looking for the missing boy.
He was found two campsites over from where we were camped, sitting at the picnic table of an elderly couple eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
"We figured someone would show up," the man said.
The story was told for many years over the pewter ice bucket of rocks and tales. It wasn't until my cousin's wedding, nearly two decades later, when the boy was now an adult and his father's disdain for my mother had cooled that I came clean and told them what happened.
My mother slugged me. In the arm, but she slugged me.
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