“Testing the Old, Damp Ground”

[Date] article from the The Dallas Morning News newspaper

by Michael Granberry

My little corner of West Plano recently concluded its annual tradition, “Dads in the Hood.”
I have come to fear and loathe this date on the calendar because, as scores of my friends and colleagues will tell you, I am not an outdoorsman.

In 1977, I almost died of exposure on a kayaking trip in the Sea of Cortez. In 1975, I almost broke my neck trying to navigate a 6-foot hill while cross-country skiing in Anchorage, Alaska.

My idea of outdoor fun is sitting on the 50-yard line at a Cowboys game. If the weather is nice.

I am most pathetic at anything having to do with camping. The first year I lived in Plano, I heard about “Dads in the Hood” and wished I hadn’t. The tradition calls for what I consider the miserable, the horrible, the unthinkable! You pitch a tent and actually sleep in it – in your yard – with you and your kids inside. In other words, Mom gets the night off.

It’s supposed to be some kind of 21st-century yuppie bonding ritual. But what Dads in the Hood means for me is an endless, sleepless night, fueled by cheap pizza, Diet Coke and hours of conversation about such scintillating topics as Lizzie McGuire and SpongeBob SquarePants.
My problems only start with the tent: I don’t know how to pitch one. The first year of my Mad in the Hood experience, I spent an hour trying to get the tent to look like something other than a large, flyaway condom. Luckily, I spotted a UPS truck cruising down the street.

“Hey, you!” I said to the driver. “Know how to pitch a tent?”

“Well, yeah,” he said. “Who doesn’t?”

“Could you pitch one for me?”

When only his silence replied, I said, “I’ll pay you 10 bucks to pitch this tent.”

And pitch it he did. For my money, it looked better than anyone else’s. As I’ve often said, it’s always best to pay a professional and have the job done right.

Soon, bedtime arrived, and there I was, ready to spend the night with only a thin layer of plastic and a flimsy sleeping bag separating me and my bones from the damp ground. And my ineptitude continues when the night is finished. I don’t know how to put the tent away, so I usually stick it in a trash bag and donate the contents to the Salvation Army, which you, too, should consider: It’s a great tax write-off. And OK, I admit it, I have been known to just throw the darned thing away rather than figure out how to put it back into a box, which, I’m sorry, I don’t know how to do.

So, every year, the same guy seems to wait on me at the sporting goods store in my neighborhood. “Must be Dads in the Hood,” he said last month, as I pulled out the MasterCard for my yearly purchase. “Yep,” I said with a low growl. “Dads in the Hood.”

The other dads on the block really seem to groove on this ersatz adventure. But then, these are guys in their 30s and early 40s. I’m 51 – and the only guy on the block who knows that Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings.

My sons — who this year turned 12, 10 and 7 — also think it’s a really cool experience. They adore the Dads in the Hood ritual, ignoring the fact that their dad considers it almost as much fun as a root canal.

Boys sleeping in tents don’t actually sleep, as I’ve come to find out. They swap stories, they pontificate and, my goodness, they even fight! Your blanket is bigger than mine! Quit kicking me! I do not smell, and She is NOT my girlfriend!

And, OK, sure, sometimes, it’s kind of sweet, like when they curl up close to Dad even though he’s snoring like a freight train chugging through the Rockies.

Dads in the Hood is the noble creation of a well-meaning chap named John Bourke, who was once “Father of the Year” in Collin County. It was John’s idea to offer dads and sons in about 700 homes in West Plano a bonding experience that, for some reason, takes place during the autumn equinox.

I have no idea why he picked October, unless he was trying to make my seasonal sinus infection even worse.
But bonding I have learned to do. Each year, for instance, I get to know all sorts of swell people who agree to put up my tent. Indeed, this is what Dads in the Hood has meant for me: It has allowed me to connect with people I never would have met under any other circumstances and who have a skill – an art even – that I’ll never possess.

I’ve had my next-door neighbor, Bob, put up my tent, as well as other friends and strangers from the street I live on. One year, my 12-year-old, Sam, even put up the tent, which I guess you’d call some sort of genetic accident.

This year, a friend from college, visiting with her 17-year-old daughter, got the privilege.
“Honestly,” she said, “you don’t know how to put up a tent?”

“No,” I said, and then marveled at how well she had done it. Isn’t it great to have friends? And in the end, isn’t this what bonding is all about?

You find out the areas in which you’re utterly helpless. And then have your friends take care of it.

For a few minutes each year, it’s the only chance I get to feel Glad in the Hood.