Hippie Mary

When I was a freshman in college my boyfriend, Steve, and I went with the campus Wilderness Adventure Club to the Smokey Mountains to hike and camp out in the wild. We took two buses down together, split into groups of about 6-8 and went off in different directions with everything we would need to survive for a week on our backs. In my group it was me, Steve, and five girls who’d never been camping without parental supervision.

Yeah.

It all started out well. Steve and I had things pretty well under control for the first two days. We had a map, a compass, and enough knowledge and common sense to keep everyone fed and dry.

Until day three.

On that day it rained. And rained and rained and rained and rained and RAINED. It was ridiculous. We couldn’t see where we were going, and decided to just quit hiking and set up camp.

In the rain.

I delegated tasks. Brenda, Myra and Julie to set up their three tents, and Mary and Erin to find dry firewood while I sent up our tent and Steve tried to start a fire.

In the rain.

Up until this point Steve and I had been setting up all the tents and doing all the cooking and the general “work” of camping. But, it was raining, and we needed to get everything done fast.

Yeah.

My tent was up in five minutes and the girls were still trying to match up their poles. Ugh. Quickly I pitched theirs and they ran inside before I could tell them to go help find dry wood. Steve was still struggling with the fire, and Mary and Erin were no where in sight. Steve helped me find some wide evergreen branches to cut and hang across the lower hanging branches near where I’d pitched the tent. That took an hour. But, it provided enough of a shelter to build the fire under, if we could ever get dry wood. Mary and Erin finally came back, drenched, holding a few half soaked twigs in their hands.

Seriously?

I told the girls to take some canteens and jugs and collect water from the creek, which Steve and I noticed was rising into a full on river. We went down to the banks to find felled trees, hoping that there’d be some dry wood underneath.

Jackpot.

We hatcheted and hacked till we had enough to just cook dinner, and headed back. The site was silent. The girls were all in their tents. No water had been collected.

Are you kidding?

I dragged the girls from their shelters and said if they wanted to eat they needed to help. Mary was sitting in MY tent, reading Jack Kerouac.

Yeah, Man.

Mary got on my nerves. My dorm nieghbor, her room reeked of patchouli and body odor. She was one of those hippie wannabes who thought the whole movement in the 60’s was just about getting high and shirking responsibility and (quite literally) hugging trees. Her stereo blared the Grateful Dead through the walls into my dorm room, but when you asked her who Jerry Garcia was she had no clue. She spent more time telling me that I wasn’t an individual, but rather controlled by “the man” because I shaved my legs than actually thinking about what the hell she was doing and why. Needless to say at the time she just totally aggravated me and many of my private thoughts were dedicated to the fantasy of setting her head on fire.

ANYWAY. Seeing her there, warm and cozy in MY tent while Steve and I had been trying to take care of her and the other girls just sent me into a whirlwind of fury. I grabbed her by the hair and dragged her from my tent. She was kicking and screaming and the other girls emerged from their tents to watch as I ripped her book from her hands, shredded it up and used it as kindling. I think Steve knew better than to object at that point.

In the rain.

That night Steve and I made soup for us, and the Ramen Noodles that seemed to be all the girls packed for themselves for the week, over the teeny fire that struggled to stay aflame.

In the rain.

I washed the pots in the river, hung the food bag in the highest tree I could find, and headed back to my tent to sleep. Mary said, “What about my dinner?” I said, “What do you need food for? Food is just one of the ways “the man” keeps you dependent on him, fleeces your pockets of your stash-cash while filling and weakening your body with his animal-hormone injected poison. Learn to live without, and you won’t need “the man””.

And I went to bed.

Did I mention the rain?

The rains at some point in the night turned into a torrential downpour and flooded the river and soaked the mountainside. But by morning they’d stopped, and the scenery was breathtaking. Everything glistened with left over raindrops sparkling in the morning sun. It was still chilly, and luckily Steve and I had saved some wood in our tent for breakfast, which was (burned) oatmeal. For everyone but Mary.

Cuz I’m a bitch.

We decided to let our stuff dry out in the sun, and spend a day just hiking around the camp site. We’d seen a lovely waterfall on the way to this particular area (I have to remind you that we were not at a campground. We were IN the mountains, with no facilities for miles) and Steve and I decided to go bathing in it. It was about a thirty minute walk there and back, and we enjoyed ourselves and each other under the falls and on the sun-warmed rocks for at least two hours. When we got back the girls ran up to us in total and utter panic. Mary was missing. Apparently she’d decided to wander off by herself to feel sorry for herself and get high (she’d brought no food, but a plentiful stash of marijuana). While we were gone another hiker, a rather handsome army guy, had shown up and set his tent up near ours. Steve and I were so happy to have the company of another person who wasn’t an idiot! He offered to help look for Mary. I decided that no one could do anything on an empty stomach, so while Steve and Handsome Army Guy (whose name I can’t remember now)gathered supplies for a potentially long hike, I made lunch of pasta and carrots for the group. We ate quickly and set off. Steve, Handsome Army Guy and I led each group so that we wouldn’t lose anyone else. We decided to search for a hour and meet back at camp. When we did, there was Mary, sitting on a rock, trying to start a fire with her zippo and some wet leaves. She was crying.

The girls all ran over to her, concerned where she’d been, and she stood up, wiping her eyes and loving the attention and said, “I went for a walk to smoke and commune with the trees (moron!). I saw a red winged blackbird and decided to follow it (see?! I told you!). It led me way off trail, and by the time I lost it I realized I got lost too. (duh, Dumbass!)” I said, “Mary, why didn’t you just follow the river back upstream to the camp? You can see the tents from the bank.” Then she said, “I DID go to the river, KB. I went to the river, stood in the water and called your name…I screamed your name over and over and over but you never came. Well then I knew that you weren’t going to come help me, so I went back to the trail and wandered around. Then I smoked some more, and saw this huge, fat toad. She was calling my name, over and over. I followed her for a while, and she led me here.”

And then she added, “It just goes to show that animals are more kind than some humans. That toad saved my life. Where were you?”

Oh. My. God.

While the other girls were in awe of her miraculous toad-led return, I just stood there fuming. “You stood in the middle of a rushing river and screamed my name? was I supposed to be able to hear you over the noise of the current?! The TOAD was calling your name?? Did you stop for a moment to think that it wasn’t the toad, you know, a creature with no linguistic abilities, but rather US wandering around calling your name for the LAST HOUR??”

Yeah. I lost it.

At that point, I grabbed her, took her pot from her, went to her tent, took her stash, and marched down to the river, dumping the whole thing into the water. Marching back, I screamed into her face, “You don’t seem to get it. We are not at Yellowstone, we aren’t at a KOA. We’re in the mountains, the wild mountains, where animals and the elements can KILL YOU if you don’t use your head. The other girls are at least smart enough to do what Steve and I tell them because they know we have more experience than they do, and everyday they learn more and become more independent. But YOU ARE AN IDIOT WASTE OF HUMAN FLESH and you’re going to get yourself, or someone else KILLED!”.

Or something down those lines.

We spent the rest of the day cleaning all of our things from the mud and rain, and enjoyed a great night with Handsome Army Guy. Mary stayed in her tent, even when I brought her dinner.