“It will be a great party, just imagine, camping by the river, a campfire, food, beer and lots of laughs!” These are the words I remember as I drove my beat up Chevy station wagon to Mr Green’s farmhouse. Right, a great time, where were you now? What was I going to say. I had to think of a plan, a story that sounded believable. My brother wanted his tent back and it was up to me to retrieve it, along with our sleeping bags and other things we had hauled down to the river bank weeks before. How was it that I was in this predicament anyway? Where were my party buddies? With the threat of by brother telling my parents, I had to retrieve his tent and the family camping equipment. I tried to remember the last time my brother even went camping. Why did he need his stupid tent anyway. I always loved the location of Mr. Green’s farm. It was on the Nansemond River. He had 100’s of acres surrounded by trees, right on the edge of the river. There was a line of trees at the river’s edge. From that spot, there was a drop off of about 50′ down to the sandy beach. It was a really quiet spot. Many times I would drive down to the edge of Mr. Green’s farm, but as soon as I crossed the road onto his dirt road, out of nowhere he would appear in his pickup truck. You couldn’t even see his house from the road. How did he know when anyone crossed from the county road onto his property? It wasn’t more than 30 seconds when you would see his truck come barreling down the drive to stop the unknowing visitor. It always went something like this, “You do know that you are on private property, don’t you? What do you want?” he would say. Well, that’s about as far as you got. You never made it any further. He was a grumpy old man and didn’t want anyone on his land. “You are better at talking to people than the rest of us. You go talk to old man Green and ask him if we can camp on his beach.” Bill said. “Right, I’m sure that he is going to let a bunch of teenagers party on his beach. He won’t even let me down his stupid dirt road.” I said. “Come on, it will be a blast. We will set up the tent in the afternoon, bring all of the sleeping bags and get things ready. At night, we will bring the beer and food. You will think of something to tell him. All of the other guys are looking forward to it.” Billy pleaded. “Ok, I’ll think of something.” I said. “Sweet!” Bill said. “I’ll go and tell the guys to get everything ready.” Now the fun part. What in the heck was I going to tell old man Green. It had to be a doozie. Think, think, what would convince you to let a bunch of teenagers camp on your beach? I racked my brain. I just couldn’t imaging what would work. For most of the day, nothing came to mind. At the last-minute, when it was getting late in the day, I finally came up with my “story”. Somehow I knew he would fall for it, but I had to make it believable. I wasn’t on bad terms with Mr. Green, I was just a guy who liked to come visit his farm, if it was only from a distance. I had my story and was ready to see if I could sell it to him. I drove down the state road rehearsing my lines. It was important that I sound sincere. Rounding the last turn, his dirt road came into view. I rambled onto his property and sure enough, within 30 seconds, Mr. Green came hauling ass around the corner, a dust cloud being churned up behind his Ford pickup. He skidded to a stop in front of my Chevy wagon, blocking my path. He swung the door open, jumped to the ground and approached my car. I knew that I had to get out of my car and approach him as if I was expecting his inquisition. “You do know that this is private property, don’t you son!” he said. “Yes sir, I do. I actually wanted to talk with you.” I said, building up my nerve. “Yeah, well what do you want?” old man Green asked. “Well, you see sir, I’m the president of my church youth group at St. Andrews Lutheran Church. Our youth group wanted to ask if you would be kind enough to allow us to use your beach down by the river for a youth campout. We have admired your beach and thought that it would be a wonderful location for us to simply get together, have a little campfire, roast marshmallows and sing Kumbaya. The kids are a great group of girls and boys that would simply love to use it to pray and sing.” I said. Mr. Green’s whole demeanor changed in an instant. “Why that sounds like a wonderful time. I’d be pleased to have you young people use my beach as a place to do such wonderful things. Just make sure that you clean up after yourselves and NO funny business. I don’t want a bunch of drinking and smoking going on!” he warned. “No sir, these are a fine bunch of kids. I’ll personally watch over them and make sure that they leave your beach as clean as when they arrived” I promised. “Ok, when will you be needing to use my beach?” he said. “Well, we were thinking about tomorrow night.” I replied. “That’s no problem at all. Enjoy yourselves.” he said. With that, I took my leave. I climbed back into my old car, backed down the drive and headed home. I did it! He fell for it. The guys were gonna’ be impressed! “Party, party!” Bill yelled after I told him the news. “I can’t believe that he fell for it, man you are good. What the heck did you tell him?” he asked. “I just told him that us church boys wanted to sing Kumbaya on his beach.” I said. “Well, whatever you told him, it worked. I’ll tell the rest of the guys to come over tomorrow afternoon to pack up all of the gear so that we can haul it down to the beach.” Bill said. The next day was going to be tricky. My brother had asked for a tent for Christmas and Santa had brought him this big green canvas tent that would sleep 4 people. It was his pride and joy and sneaking it out of the garage wasn’t going to be easy. I would have to wait until he was busy, then sneak it into my car, along with sleeping bags and the rest of the gear. I went into the kitchen and rummaged through the cupboard looking for chips, snacks and anything else that might go with beer. I wasn’t a big beer drinker, but Bill was. Beer was Bill’s department. His dad had quite a stash of booze in his house, so it wouldn’t be hard to sneak out 2 or 3 six packs of beer and Bacardi’s along with the usual Coke chaser. The plan was to meet up at the end of the neighborhood and take the tent and sleeping bags down to the beach. We all arrived at 4PM, piled into my station wagon and headed down to the beach. As we headed onto Mr. Green’s property, there was no sign of Mr. Green. Whatever method he used to tell who was on his property told him that I was the same guy that had met him the day before. Surprised, I continued down the lane until I reached the row of trees that lined the edge of the property. The beach was below this line of trees. We all jumped out, opened the back of the station wagon and hauled my brothers tent along with our sleeping bags down the hill to the beach. “Wow, this is a really cool place!” Jim said. “Yeah, I never knew that this place even existed.” Mark said. “Yeah, it’s one of my favorite places, even though I never make it more than 50 yeards down the dirt road before getting stopped by old man Green. Let’s get the tent set up so everything will be ready.” I said. We spent the next hour driving the stakes into the ground, setting up the poles, stretching the new canvas over the frame of the tent. We laid out the sleeping bags on the bottom of the tent. Next, we built a pit for the campfire and lined it with rocks. Man, this was a great place. I had actually been to the water before. One of my friends was friends with the McCarters who had horses. The McCarters knew old man Green. We used to ride the horses bareback to the beach and wade into the water while riding the horses. Since Mr. Green loved horses, he never even bothered to ask who we were. I guess the McCarters had done this plenty of times before and just figured we were part of the family. I never understood how they let Jimmy simply go to their barn any time he wanted, put a bridle and bit on the horses and take the horse out to wherever he wanted to go. We had finished setting up. We were ready for the coolest party to begin. “Let’s meet up at your house at 7PM tonight.” I said. “Great, I will bring the party supplies!” Bill said. I knew that party supplies meant booze. Everyone piled into my car and we all went home. At dinner, I told my parents that I was going to go spend the night at Bill’s house. “Fine, just behave yourself.” my mom said. “Of course, I always do!” I grinned. After dinner I packed a sweater and a coat, just in case it got cold. I headed over to Bill’s house. Mark and Jim were already there. Bill had the beer, Bacardi and Coke in several grocery bags by the garage door. We simply put them in the back of the station wagon, everyone got in and headed down the road, out of the neighborhood and into the cool autumn air. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. This was a perfect camping night. We finally go to the end of the state road where Mr. Green’s property was. Slowly, as if we were trying to sneak onto the property, we turned off the lights of the car, the road only illuminated by the light of the moon, I let the car simply idle down the sandy road in the direction of the beach. Without much sound, we slowly parked the car and all piled out of the car, carrying the goods down to the beach. Why were we so quiet? We had permission. We all knew why we were quiet. We had hootch! We were not choir boys and we were going to sing Led Zepplin, not Kumbaya! “Let’s get the fire started.” I said. I knew that if we didn’t get the fire started, the batteries in our flashlights would die soon enough. It was pitch dark out here. There wasn’t a light to be seen anywhere. The stars in the sky were brilliant. The river lapped quietly at the shore. It was so peaceful, so serene. It seemed a shame to disturb the quiet. “Hurry up!” Mark said. “I’m hungry and need a beer.” We found some kindling wood and lit the fire without too much effort as the fall weather had been dry and the wood caught fire without hesitation. It wasn’t long before we had quiet a nice fire going. “Crack open the good stuff.” Bill said, and with that he went straight for the hard stuff, the Bacardi Rum, chasing it with his usually bottle of Coke. We each opened a can of his dad’s Schlitz beer. I thought to myself, this stuff is pretty nasty, but at least it is wet. I needed something to go with the salty pretzels that we had managed to abscond from my mom’s kitchen. After a few beers and half a bottle of Bacardi, we told stories and lies of things that never happened but wished they had. After a few hours, I think we did sing a chorus of Kumbaya, but not sure that the angels would have approved of our version. The evening was beautiful, the stories were flowing and the booze was gone. I climbed into the tent ready for a good nights sleep, but nobody else followed. “Hey, aren’t you guys gonna’ crash? I brought all of these sleeping bags.” I inquired. “Naw, I’m not really big into camping and I’m not feeling too good.” Bill said. “Yeah, I told my folks I would be home before midnight.” Jim admitted. “Well I’m not going to spend the night out here all by myself with nobody to talk to.” I said. “We need a ride home.” they all said. “Great, so much for our great camping trip. We dumped water on the fire to put it out and realized that nobody knew where their flashlight was. We cursed at the roots and brush that barred our way as we lumbered up the hill towards the car, the stars being our only light. After a little while of crawling on all fours, we made it to the car. Everyone piled in and I cranked up the old Chevy, keeping the lights out. We headed down the dirt lane, trying to be as quiet as possible. The crickets seemed louder than my car. We hit the state road, turned on the lights and headed home. I dropped everyone off, grunted an annoyed goodbye and drove home. I parked the car in the driveway. My parents weren’t at home. They usually headed to town on Saturday nights with my brother in tow. With no one home, I simply climbed the stairs, got into my PJ’s and climbed in bed. I was exhausted and disappointed that my buddy’s had bailed on me. Slowly, I drifted off to sleep, the smell of campfire surrounding my nose. “Oh crap!” I jumped from my bed. It was morning. I had totally forgotten about the tent, the beer cans, the empty Bacardi bottle and trash on the beach. I had promised Mr. Green that I would clean up our mess, that the youth group would pack up their s’mores, hot cocoa and equipment and leave his beach as pristine as we had found it. I skipped breakfast, headed to my car and sped down the road to Mr. Green’s beach. I didn’t dare turn on to his driveway. I stopped the car down the road and snuck to the beach by the edge of the property. Like a snake, I slid down the hill to the beach. “Oh no!” I said to myself, everything was gone. My brother’s tent, all of the trash, the beer cans, Bacardi bottle and snack wrappers, all gone. We had been found out. Slowly, I drove home, thinking of what I was going to tell my brother when he looked for his tent. What was I going to tell our church youth leader when he got the call from an angry Mr. Green asking what kind of youth group our church was sponsoring. Think, think. I had to think of what I was going to say. I pulled my beat up Chevy in the driveway and turned off the motor. I shook my head, really shaking my head at myself and the mess I had gotten myself into. “Where did you head off to in such a hurry?” my mom asked. “Oh, I wanted to run down to the beach and make sure that we had cleaned everything up at the campsite.” I told my mom. I had told her that Mr. Green had agreed to let us camp on his beach anytime we wanted. Another lie. I was getting deeper and deeper into this mess with no way out. The next day after church, my brother was busy with his friends and had no need for his tent, so I was good for now. At church, nobody mentioned a word about receiving a call from Mr. Green. That afternoon I expected that my parents would receive a phone call, but they never did. The days turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months. Summer turned to fall and fall turned to winter. I had totally forgotten about the whole incident. Life was back to normal. I was in the clear. I was working on my old Chevy when my brother came up behind me, “Where is my tent!?” he asked. “Uh, I don’t know. Why would I know where your tent is.” I lied. “It’s not in the garage where I put it and you would have been the only one that used it. I’m going to tell mom and dad that you lost my tent.” he threatened. “Ok, ok, I borrowed your tent.” I said. “When did you borrow it?” he asked. “Well, last summer. My friends and I wanted to camp out on Mr. Green’s beach.” I admitted. “Last summer! Where is my tent now? I want my tent! I’m telling dad.” he yelled. “Wait, wait, I’ll get back your tent. Give me a couple of days.” I pleaded. “I need it this weekend for the church youth group outing.” he said. “Ok, I’ll have it before then.” I promised. “You better!” he threatened. What was I going to do? My brother Drew was actually going to a youth group outing and needed his tent. I really felt guilty now. I had taken his tent without asking, lost it to farmer Green and now I had to produce his tent. I didn’t have the money to buy him a new one and I didn’t want for my mom and dad to find out about our wild party and the lies I had told Mr. Green. I had to come up with a plan. What was I going to tell Mr. Green? Think, think. I had to get out of this mess. Well, a lie got me into this mess, so I was either going to have to come clean or come up with an even better story. “Aha!” I said to myself. I had a plan. It was Friday. I had to get my brother’s tent back! I made the long drive to Mr. Green’s farm in my parent’s car. I stopped the car. I opened the glove box, took out my necessary tools. Slowly, I applied Vitalis to my hair. I slicked it back, with a nice part on the right side; next I took the fake mustache out of the package which I had purchased earlier that day from a novelty store. I carefully applied it to my upper lip. “Yep, that looks about right.” I told myself. The shirt that I wore was a button shirt. I buttoned all of the buttons, all the way to the top. I looked like a complete nerd. “This should do it.” I convinced myself. I put the car in drive and drove down Mr. Green’s lane. This time, for some reason, Mr. Green didn’t meet me as soon as I crossed his property line. I made it all the way to his house, which I had never seen before. I got out of my parent’s station wagon, slammed the door and waited for someone to come out of the farmhouse. Sure enough, Mr. Green came out of the back door, through the screened porch and made his way to me. “Can I help you?” he asked. “Yes sir. You see, my name is Jeffrey Willis from St. Andrews Lutheran Church in Churchland. I’m the new youth group leader.” I told him as convincingly as I could. Before I could continue, Mr. Green jumped in, “That no good youth group president that you sent down here trashed my beach; told me some lies about having a youth group meeting and singin’ some songs around the campfire. I went down the next morning to find my beach a total mess, beer bottles and trash everywhere. What kind of youth group are you running anyway!?” What was I going to say? He was still hot under the collar about being lied to. How was I going to convince him to give back my brother’s tent? “Mr. Green, you should be upset, being lied to and all of that. I would feel the same way. We don’t condone that kind of behavior at our church, believe me! The youth group president that caused all of this is no longer with us.” I fibbed. “Good, I hope you kicked him out of your church!” Mr. Green retorted. “Actually, Mr. Green, he died in a car accident a few weeks ago.” I said as my story started to form in my head. Mr. Green’s face looked astonished and his whole composure changed. “I’m really sorry to hear that, even if that boy did cause me quite a mess.” he said as he rubbed the back of his neck pondering what to say next. Before he could continue, I said, “The reason that I am here is to find out if you know what happened to the tent, you see, the tent belongs to the church and they need it for a real camping outing that I will be leading.” Mr. Green walked over to one of his outbuildings and said, “Well, that morning, after I picked up all of the trash, I took down the tent and folded it up and brought it here to my barn. I wasn’t going to ever give it back, considering how they lied to me and everything.” He opened the door to his small barn, went in to the back of the barn and sure enough, up on the shelf near a bunch of boxes and old mason jars there sat my brother’s tent. “There it is, all of the part are there.” he said. I grabbed the tent, the stakes and all of the tent poles, glad to finally have them in my possession. “You know, it was a terrible thing, the accident and all. The family is really dealing with all of this pretty bad. I’m really sorry for what happened, but promise that it won’t ever happen again.” I said. “Well, that’s quite a shame.” Mr. Green agreed. “What type of farming do you do anyway? I love the smell of the soil and a hard day’s work.” I said, as if I had grown up on a farm myself. “Well, you know, I pretty much grow soybeans for part of the year, then change to corn every now and then. Hey, would you like to see my tractor?” Mr. Green grinned. “Sure, is it a Deere or a Massey?” I asked, not really knowing what either of them would look like, other than all John Deere tractors are green. “Come on over to my implement barn and let me show you!” as he put his arm on my shoulder guiding the way. I didn’t care what he wanted to show me, now that I had my brother’s beloved tent back. “I’d love to see it!” I said with as much enthusiasm as I could muster as he led me on a personal tour of his farm. “Now this here is where I keep my tractors……………” Life was good once again.