The Young Gentleman’s Tent
This was originally aa tent for a father and son who were camping for the Pig Roast weekend wile mom was at home relaxing and enjoying the quiet. Occasionally, there would be another young man whose parents were not staying for the weekend who would sleep in the tent. The name was perfect. One year I was the designated guardian for one of these young men. I had known him since birth and he was a member of my youth group.
Friday night was not usually a big drinking night. Usually Friday was more like homecoming with people arriving throughout the afternoon and evening form their different locations across the country. I had picked up my charge after school and we had gone to the farm. He set up his sleeping gear in the Young Gentleman’s Tent and the evening began.
At one point he and I were watching a euchre game and he asked if he could learn how to play. The players were wonderful and accommodating. My charge and I became partners and the pair we were playing were brothers. The game began. Several hands into the game, a young man, who had ridden a Greyhound buss from Utah to attend this party, arrived at the farm and got settled in. Then he approached our table with an open bottle of Wild Turkey. Mind you, my charge was already drinking about a beer per each hand of the euchre game when this young man approached the table with the open bottle of whiskey. The three adults at the table took a drink and then my charge reached for the bottle. I asked him what he was doing and he said he was getting drunk. He continued, he had had a bad day at school and he planned to get drunk tonight. A young man with a plan is nothing to laugh at. (Well, actually in some cases, it really is something to laugh at.) So, there we were teaching a high school age boy how to play euchre and he was set on getting drunk. I appreciated that he had a plan and was putting it into action.
There is a point when you are drinking that it becomes clear you have passed the point of no return and that the situation just has to play itself out. My charge hit that point and I immediately removed him from the game. I decided that he needed to walk. So, walk we did. Down the driveway and to the left-this led to the creek. We sat on the gravel pile for a moment-he laid back and it was not good. So, we continued to walk. We went back up the lane, past the driveway towards the rental house. We passed the house and field and ended up at the driveway of the resident who lived at the end of the lane. During our conversation my charge asked why we were walking. I said that he was going to be sick so I took him away from the party so it wouldn’t be a scene. He seemed touched that I would do that for him. Then he asked me to hold his empty cup. He excused himself to the side of the road and, as I predicted, got sick. I handed him a bandanna (because when working with youth I always carried a bandana) he used it and tried to give it back to me. I graciously declined and insisted he keep it-in case he needed it in the future.
We went back to the party, I got him settles into the Young Gentleman’s Tent and went back to the party. It was not until the next morning that I learned how the rest of his night went. Apparently, when the adult male sleeping in the tent went to bed my charge was passed out, halfway out of the tent having lost the remaining contents of his stomach.
I was near the door to the porch when he entered the next morning. He had made a plan and carried it out. He got some breakfast and was later seen taking a nap-a.k.a. “sleeping it off.”
I love that kid!
