Time rights a wrong

There have been times in the past when I have been left no choice but to leave a camping park under duress.

Like the time I inadvertently missed the site renewal deadline at The Pinery and all my camping gear was unceremoniously heaped behind the gatehouse.

Or the time I unfortunately let my drinking buddies know where I was spending the weekend with a new girlfriend.

Those are episodes from the distant past of course. I no longer have either drinking buddies or girlfriends.

So there I was, Sunday afternoon, enjoying a few pints beside my campfire. Yes, I know it's a waste of firewood to be having a campfire in the middle of the afternoon, but I'll let you in on a secret.

I was burning driftwood!

Now they have all sorts of prohibitions against that, but when you think it through I was doing them a favor. On this stretch of Lake Superior the driftwood literally clutters the beach. If it wasn't for helpful campers like me, the beaches would become utterly clogged with driftwood in no time at all.

I have no remorse about the burning of driftwood.

So there I am, just burned one, pint in hand, park 3/4 empty, and suddenly they show up.

At least two dozen of them.

And they're congregating at the very next campsite.

For fucks sakes!

Frat party? Kegger? Will we be dealing with drunken youth for half the night?

They pulled a trailer with a big BBQ unit into the site. The rest of the cars parked across the road and down the way. I could hear beverages being buried in ice.

For fucks sakes!

I sent the Farm Manager on a reconn mission. The nearest water tap is right across the way from that site.

Pretend you're fetching some water.

She comes back with strange news.

They're all drinking pop. I didn't see any beer.

Thirty guys are gathered around a campsite and there's no beer?

How is such a thing even possible?

Then she pointed out, there's no swearing either.

For fucks sakes! I realized immediately we've got a cult situation on our hands!

If that wasn't bad enough, it suddenly got really weird...

The entire crowd had taken their lawn-chairs down to the beach. Another reconn mission for the Manager.

She comes back ten minutes later.

You won't believe this but I think they're baptizing somebody. They're standing in a circle with their pants rolled up and they're dunking that young guy...

Bible thumpers!

I knew it was a cult!

Now, to be perfectly fair, there were no Bibles in evidence. But still, show me a baptism and I'll show you Bible thumpers.

They came back to their campsite and fired up the BBQ. I had to fire something up too just to make sense of this. As I was sitting there in deep ponderation, the Park Ranger and his side-kick cruised by in their Parks Canada pick-up.

And here's where time righted so many wrongs;

Mister Leahy and Randy cruise by giving me the friendliest of waves, and pull to a stop at the adjacent campsite.

There they proceed to give the Bible-thumpers proper hell for parking in campsites they haven't paid for!

The entire cult was out the park and down the road within the half hour!

I sat there with the Farm Manager, by the light of our driftwood fire, pondering the miracle of Karma well into the night.