THE NIGHT OF THE LIVING JACK
A Friday night that turned into Fright Night for some unlucky RVers.
The night that Jozep danced in the fire for the first time.
On this particular occasion Jozep and Bob R and I packed up his big honking Chevy and headed out for a weekend of camping in the Rawah Wilderness. In the 70's and 80's it was still a very pleasant two hour drive from Denver. This was way before the population explosion in Colorado that occurred in the late 80's and early 90's and the highways weren't nearly as busy as they are now.
We, contrary to state law, had a few nips of Jack Daniels on our way up Poudre Canyon and Bob cranked up the tunes. As we passed one of the many campgrounds that are in the canyon we were singing along to some Beatles tunes when we noticed that people were actually stopping what they were doing when we drove by. Just a minor disturbance in their Wildness Experience. Or maybe they dug the tunes as much as we did.
We arrived at the Chambers Lake Campground, where we had planned to spend the night, at around twilight. A quick drive thru found that all the sites were full, so we opted to find a place on the other side of the lake on the Laramie River Road and just pull off and walk in a bit to set up camp.
For reasons long since forgotten, we found a small turn out that sat at the base of a 15 or 20 foot bluff that we had to climb to find a spot level enough for us to build a fire and set up our tents.
We were well into our first bottle of Jack and night had fallen when Jozep pulled out his guitar and he and Bob began taking turns playing and singing fireside.
I think it was Jozep that first heard the sound of a vehicle rumbling up the road towards where we had parked the car. I was busy keeping the bottle of Jack from getting dirt on the bottom.
"Commando alert" he said and the three of us slunk over towards the edge of the bluff. We all dropped to prone positions and belly crawled up to the edge.
Looking over we found that a big Winnebago Class C (not really that big in those days) had pulled over into the turnout just below us.
The three of us, four if you count Jack, could hear the people inside the RV talking.
"So what do you think? Is this a good place?"
"Oh, I think it will do just fine."
Un-uh. I don't think so.
Without thinking I leapt up from the darkness and screamed down at them.
"GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!!"
Man, you should have seen that Winnie peel out down the road. You'd have thought it was Charles Manson yelling at them.
We had a few more thugs to finish off Jack No.1 and on to Jack No. 2 as we walked back over to the campfire for a good laugh about it.
Later that night Jozep treated Bob and I to his version of "Stagger Lee".
"Stagger Lee shot Billy
He shot that boy so bad"
Jozep was so into it that he had inadvertently (?) stumbled right into our campfire. Bob and I sat there for a moment amazed by what we saw until Bob finally said. "Uh, Joe, you're in the fire."
Not fazed by his feat of fire walking, Jozep just continued on to finish up his song and moved slowly out of the campfire.
"Yes, Stagger Lee shot Billy"
Bob and I laughed till we cried about that. Little did we know that it wouldn't be the last time we saw Jozep dance in the fire on a camping trip.
The Night of the Living Jack. The night that inspired our Halloween T-Shirt that year.
Ah wilderness
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