Laughter Thy Name is Heart

Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.

- Victor Borge

  

The Joy of Laughter. Especially when you weren't the cause. It just seems funnier when it happens to someone else and there is another person to witness it with you. Such was the case one summer while on a camping trip. 

In my home state of Texas, there are a lot of beautiful places to go camping. None of them more so than along the banks of the Blanco river. I used to do a lot of camping. The real deal camping. Using tents and sleeping bags and taking baths in streams or rivers. I was nuts. But when I was a kid it was fun. I know better now. I camp at the Hilton or on board a cruise ship or have even been known to rent a condo now and then but tent camping went the way of childhood. A distant but fond memory full of laughs but not willing to be revisited anytime soon. 

During this particular camping trip, we had purchased one of those pop-up camp trailers for use as we were all getting a little older and as such happens with age a little wiser as well. 

The thing about Texas is depending on the time of year it can get hot here. And we have our fair share of droughts. This year was exceptional in the fact that it was hot and we were in a drought. Kind of a double whammy for any camping trip, but brave soldiers that we were we tried our best to catch a fish. We were mostly fishing for catfish but any fish would have been better than the none that we were catching. 

We tried our luck all over that river and still nothing. Oh, did I mention my Mother was with us? Yep, my Mom. We took her with us a lot when we went camping. She loved to fish, she loved Tom and she loved to camp. 

It seemed that every one of our camping trips had something funny happen but this one was hilarious. 

We finally found a shady pull out under some huge trees right next to the river. Now keep in mind the river was down because of the drought so there wasn't really any current to speak of, so when you cast your bait out. It just sunk where it landed and you hoped for the best. After about 2 hours of hoping for the best, I decided my best would be back at the trailer in the air conditioning taking a nap. So I asked Mom if she was ready to head back to camp and she said sure let's go. We walked on over to tell Tom we were leaving and see if he was ready to go. 

"No, I think I'll stay here a bit longer. I've got a heart on."  

What can I say? I turned around and raced as far as I could away from my Mom and Tom so that I could scream with laughter. Little did I know my Mom was right behind me. I looked at her, and the two of us just exploded. To this day it was one of the best memories I have of fishing and to this day Tom still has no idea that he said anything other than what he said. But to my Mom and I what we heard was not what he said. I have never been able to fish with chicken livers again and seeing a heart within the bucket makes it all come back. Sometimes you just got to laugh even if it's with your Mom about your husband having a "heart" on.