We didn’t take much food on purpose, these couple of weeks we survived on Booger Lake,” I told her. “But my cousin had this black powder gun he built from a kit and we were able to bag ourselves a real nice armadillo. Or was it a possum? I can’t remember.”
“You’re full of it, you weirdo. You didn’t — “
“I swear to God. We set traps, baited and checked trotlines on the lake at night with flashlights. But when we got that armadillo, that’s when we were truly surviving. We barbecued it on the campfire, right there on Booger Lake.”
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illustration by Jason Stout |
B.L.E., I tried to explain. The Booger Lake Expedition, a rough-man test to see if all those books on eating dandelion salads and rigging makeshift shelters in a hurricane would carry us through two weeks on the red clay banks of Booger Lake. She didn’t know the half of it, nor did she care. And believe me, I spared her some truly heinous detail.
“It tasted sort of like a pork chop, ‘cept a bit more chewy.”
Me, my cousin Jared, and the Cox boys wanted to be true mountain men. When we were 12 or 13, we immersed ourselves in these books about wilderness survival, true-to-life accounts of people stranded for weeks in the mountains and jungles with just a pocket knife and a piece of leather. Even though we slept in warm beds every night, went to school, and ate the “normal” food our moms cooked for us, we were always combing that wild hair of adventure. Despite the fact that West Texas wasn’t graced with the most mountainous terrain, we were still prepared for places like the Arctic — if it ever came down to that. And I’m sure we made these excursions a little tougher on ourselves than necessary.
But as I said, Booger Lake was the true test. Uncle Booger (whose real name was Harold) was happy to have us taming the land like we did, grateful to have tough guys out there who knew what was what. Even the hardest Marines would cower like sissies three days into what we put ourselves through, so we thought. Sure, Uncle Booger lived two miles up the dirt road, and sure, I’m not gonna say we didn’t sneak up there and make ourselves a sandwich on some days, or sneak a nip of his whiskey. But what matters is that we were willing to skin a dirty armadillo in the heat of the day, slop it up in a puddle of ketchup, and say we liked it. ‘Cause we did, I think.
We would plan B.L.E. for months and send one another letters that weighed 10 pounds apiece, crammed full of our summer itinerary. Each of us was responsible for our own part of the overall master plan for Booger Lake. Someone would bring a tarp, another person would be in charge of cooking utensils, and some of the other guys were gonna build a wooden chuck box for our dry goods and condiments. And on the day we finally met for the trip, we’d meticulously grill over the grocery and supply list as to not get stranded from our own forgetfulness once out in the “wilderness.”
Trenton Cox, who had just turned 16 and was the oldest of us all, would drive his dad’s blue and white van crammed full of our gear: ice chests, tents, rod & reels, tackle boxes, and spools of fishing line. I’d have a knot in my stomach the size of a baseball weeks before our trip and would load and unload my backpack over and over in my head at night.
Once we finally got out to our own little paradise in the hills of Sweetwater, Uncle Booger and his old arthritic hound Waldo would straggle outside to meet us. He’d turn on his Christmas lights he kept up year-’round and tell us about seeing some deer in the yard that morning or how there hasn’t been a drop of rain in weeks. He’d turn and spit in the grass and hook his thumbs in his belt buckle.
“Y’all be careful when yer makin’ yer camp fore,” he’d say. “S’been perty dry. Couple ‘dem cows might s’prise ya at night, too — just so you’ll know.”
Uncle Booger could’ve eaten John Wayne for breakfast with his morning ham and eggs and never think twice about it — a true-as-dirt West Texas cowboy. There in the yard was his beaten-to-hell ranch jeep that was missing its brakes. If you ever got the thing going at a good speed on the trails, you’d better be careful. (The only way to stop the damn thing, as Booger demonstrated one day, was to veer off the road and plow into a mesquite tree).
After we’d chat awhile, Uncle Booger would tell us good luck and straddle back into the house like an old bull rider. He’d turn around just before going inside and tell us there was always a meal and a shower waiting — if we wanted one. We’d hop back into the van and bounce our way over the rough dirt roads that led to the lake where there was always a john boat and a couple of wooden oars waiting for us when we arrived. We’d pack the boat full of gear and row it across to our campsite, which was just beyond the lily pads and four-foot reeds that jutted from the other side of the water.
The four of us would take hours to set up camp, focusing painstaking detail on the exact position of our tents, shade tarps, or firepit. We’d go up the hill to make sure that the toilet we’d made from an old milk crate and toilet seat was still tucked away in the cave where we left it a year before. When camp was finally in order, we’d load up our fishing gear or the old Davy Crockett black powder gun we built from a kit, and head off into the red hills in search for some “real” dinner.
A lot of the time (well, most of the time) we’d come back with nothing in our sacks. Other times, as I explained earlier, maybe our luck would follow us. Regardless, we always had about 15 cans of beans and Top Ramen to concoct a heaping pot of wallpaper paste. And we smiled as we choked it down as if it were our first meal out of prison, or a 10 oz. T-bone steak.
Then, when the dishes were either washed or hardening on a rock somewhere, we’d stoke the fire and settle in for the evening. And slowly, as the sun would sink below the clay hills and cast the most radiant yellows, oranges, and reds across the top of Booger Lake, we’d feel like men. I’d reach into my pack, pull out a crumpled box of Swisher Sweets and light it in the fire and listen for coyotes when the crickets would hush. We’d sit there swapping stories like old war vets while the smoke whipped into the darkness, and all that mattered then was those four faces flickering in and out of the firelight.
Uncle Booger passed on a few years ago and was buried appropriately in his favorite Western shirt and boots. He left my Aunt Joyce in charge of the ranch, the few cows that still wander around, and the old stock tank two miles up the dirt road. It’s been years since I rowed the john boat across the lake to set up camp in the summer. It wasn’t long until the much-anticipated time we’d spend roughing it on Booger Lake was filled by jobs, summer school, and girlfriends.
I don’t know if Booger’s hound Waldo still sleeps there on the porch, though I think he too might’ve succumbed to arthritis and old age a year or two after Booger died. I also wonder if the rickety jeep with no brakes still gets driven into mesquite trees, or if the milk crate toilet still sits in the cave where we left it. In any case, what matters is that we had those times, had what it took to survive the “wilderness,” and someone like Uncle Booger who could offer that to us, someone who could give us our side of the mountain.
This article appears in September 18 • 1998 and September 18 • 1998 (Cover).