A person doesn’t own a campsite. This is obvious, and no one would argue that point. But you do, for a time, pay a small amount of rent and occupy said campsite. While that does not make the site yours—its parking pad, firepit, picnic table, and surrounding green space—it does give you some sense of ownership, as evidenced by a feeling not unlike a violation of your property rights when other campers walk through your campsite because it decreases their distance between point A and whatever point B their destination may be.
This is, of course, a ridiculous feeling, but I suspect I’m not alone. You hear them from inside your camper, crunching leaves as they pass through, and you want to open the door and scream “get off my lawn, you sumbitch!” What is this feeling of ownership? Is it evolutionary? Deep within us, do we have this need to create a magical boundary as a buffer of safety so that those who trespass can be quickly identified as the enemy, a threat to be dealt with both swiftly and without mercy?
The same can be said, I suppose, for about everything we own. Our homes, cars, etc. We don’t own it. At best we rent it. And I would suggest that it is not so much a reflection of who we are individually as it is of who we are collectively, not even necessarily as humans, but as a living thing that wants to go on living, because all creatures create little properties that you’d better stay off of if you know what is good for you. Try to mess with a goose if you don’t believe me. Their property is anywhere they happen to be and you better realize that or you’ll pay for it dearly.
Today I purchased another 7-day fishing license, and it would have been cheaper now to have bought a yearly license for Alabama. I picked up the right kind of worms and some lures suitable for bass as well. And still, all around me while others caught fish, I caught nothing. I am the world’s worst fisherman.
Eventually a man showed up on the dock with Wonder Bread, rolled it into a ball, put it on his hook, and proceeded to catch a dozen fish in an hour. Wonder Bread. Eventually I caught two small sunnies. Then I quit and gathered dozens of pinecones which I’ll use to both start and augment my fire tonight. I am good at catching pinecones. They just sit there, right out in the open, like morons.
Today, in fact, one fell from a tree from a great height, probably 80 feet, and I could hear the wind whistling through it as it screamed toward the ground and landed just feet from me with a thunk. It was half as big as my head, and it surely would have bled me badly had it connected.
It strikes me that, were I out here trying to live off the land, and say, supporting a small family, we would be eating pinecones tonight while all throughout the campground the smell of roasting fish delighted the senses of happy families while my family prayed for a pinecone to connect with my skull and put me out of my misery so that they could find a real provider.
“Look, family!” I would say, doing my best to cheer them up and win their love. “I have made a paste from hundreds of fire ants. Our pinecones tonight will not be without flavor!”
But they would soon abandon me to my high fiber diet, my insides being torn apart by the indigestable pinecone of failure.
Tomorrow I will drive to the beach. My friends from Minneapolis, Tony and Shinano and their two cute kids, are staying at a beach house 100 miles from here. It will be so nice to see friends.
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