I begin by welcoming back to the blog Capo Joe of our Nebraska syndicate. In reading his entry I feel compelled to share my personal Mastandrea camping story. (Although this does not excuse you, Mr. Simms from validating and possibly elaborating upon it.)

Marlena has tiptoed around a few themes that are worth mentioning. After nearly a decade in Florida, the Mastandreas still continue to struggle with the foreign cultural norms that plague the Sunshine State. I'll give you an example: Floridians take great pleasure in driving into a dark insect-infested forest, making a large fire and then drinking beer until they pass out among the twigs, rocks, and cans cluttering the ground. Mastandreas are simply not genetically equipped for life without laptops, air conditioning, pillowtop mattresses, refrigerators, electric cofee-pots, or audio/visual entertainment centers. That said, I'll tell the tale of Steve the Camper.

Back in winter of 1994, a number of my fellow dorm-dwellers were craving a little outdoor experience. They were unanimous in their decision for a camping trip to Ocala National Forest. Of course, they begged me to go and I repeatedly declined, until finally I relented. So on a chilly Gainesville night a caravan of eight cars and nearly twenty crazed undergrads departed on I75 for Ocala National Forest. Now, immediately I find myself a bit nervous, when we reach Ocala National Forest the caravan does not drive into a park entrance or any sort of gate but instead simply turns right of the interstate and into the pitch black woods. No trail whatsoever, they just turned right into the trees and bushes. Theres also not one truck amongst us, but instead mostly cheap older compact cars driving straight through branches and bushes. The lead car just randomly turns left and right and the caravan blindly follows until a few miles in he finds a nice round open area and the caravan parks in a make shift circle. OK, I'm nervous but Im okay. So the trip organizers jump out and get right to work they drag out 10 cases of Natural Light Beer. For those who might be confused, thats 240 cans of crappy malted hops. The beer is followed immmediatally by a pile of shovels and axes, by which the campers are going to used to make a bonfire. Of course, before they even start swinging theses deadly weapons, they need to down a few brewskis... remember the beer always come first! Admittedly, even for being intoxicated they were quick and skillful at getting the bonfire going on. Once the fire is lit, the party officially starts. Now I mentioned there was close to twenty participants, and I wasn't familiar with all of them. A few daring and creative characters decided that they would pick some psilocibin mushrooms (which grow wild on the cowshit near the university) and ingest them around the fire. Apparently, camping is much more entertaining if your hallucinating wildly on fungus/fecal matter. One long-haired fellow stared into the fire and by his own description "sees two giant ants battling a starfish". He looks to me a little scared, and leans over and grabs an ax. He then climbs the closest tree and informs he "will be guarding the campground from The Predator". Now I'm shuddering, because I keep envisioning one of my intoxicated cohorts stumbling pass the hallucinating watchmen and being beheaded. So I move location to a smaller area where my close buddy Dingo is cooking some burgers with his best friend Chico. They are both extremely inebriated. Dingo turns to Chico and says "if you're my best friend, man. You will punch me as hard as you can" Chico replies "no man, your my friend dude, I can't hit you" Dingo shouts back "if your my best friend, you have to hit me!" and with that a Dingo receieved a punch square in the jaw his glasses go flying, and the two best friends start fist fighting on the floor and actually roll through the fire they were previously cooking over. One of the mushroom-eaters turns to me and says "This is a strange scene, dude." I am going to repeat myself, Mastandreas should not camp. So I once again change locations, find my buddy Simms, who by the way wore his camos for some unknown reason and we watch from afar. Cook our own food at a distance until he decided to hit the sack. There was no way I was sleeping tonite, so I went and found my other closest friend and regular insomniac Gary who for the first time in all the time I had known him was drinking a beer. He suffered from severe IBS and after two beers was upchucking half cooked potatoes and kielbasa six inches away from me. I looked to the heavens and pleaded "Please Sun, rise soon". Which it did, at which point one sees how disgusting the camp site actually looks and how revolting all the pale, hungover, vomit stained campers look. However, it was fun posing and taking pictures by Gary's puddle of electroluminescent orange vomit. If I find my favorite picture I'll post it.

So for the last time, the moral of this story is Mastandreas do not camp.