See this great old school bus. It is so much nicer than the one Daddy acquired for the unbelievable sum of fifty dollars. He purchased it from his brother-in-law, who’d gotten stuck with it as payment body work. Daddy was ahead of his time In acquiring this Tiny House. Mother was furious. Fifty dollars would have bought more than two week’s supply of groceries. Though he gave Mother no end of grief about her extravagant spending at the grocery store, he wasn’t short-sighted and saw the great potential in this bus-camper. It would be a wonderful shelter when he and his buddies went deer hunting, and oh yes, the family could use it for camping, too! Now our camper wasn’t nearly so nice as the one pictured above. It had been partially hand-painted bright silver and lacked a motor. The good news was, we could finish it up any color we liked and motors take up a lot of unnecessary space better used for storage. In that special storage area, items were stored in boxes on one deep shelf or in boxes on the floor beneath the shelf. While the rest of us were out fishing, swimming, or just running wild in general, Mother drug boxes out and dug through them for dishes, pots and pans, and food, all this with two babies in diapers. She complained about her back constantly. What a whiner!
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See how comfortable and well-appointed the camper pictured above is. Ours was nothing like this. There was no refrigerator, lighting, water, bathroom, hard-wood floors, or Benjamin Franklin wood burning stove. There was, however, an ancient gas range Daddy hooked to a propane bottle. It had two functioning burners and a defunct oven. That was okay, since Mother insisted it had a propane leak and she was scared to use it longer than it took to heat a can of beans or cook eggs. She cooked with all the windows open and made Daddy cut the fuel off every time she got through. In fact, it did have a propane leak in the line, but that’s a story for another day.
Two full-size bunk beds filled the rear of the camper. Two sets of old army bunks were stacked along either side. Of course, we fought over the top bunks. The lower bunks served as seating. A lantern and flash lights served when light was needed.
It was perfect. I remember one wonderful camping trip when Daddy pulled it to a creek bank. We swam, fished, swatted mosquitoes, cooked outdoors, only going in to sleep, so exhausted we hardly moved till morning. Mother got up several times every night to spray to camper with bug killer and spray the covers and any exposed skin with mosquito repellent. We scratched bug bites and poison ivy for days after we got home.
That was our only family camping trip. Daddy used it a time or two for hunting, then gave it up as too much trouble. It had a couple of other incarnations as a home for a farm laborer who confirmed the stove fuel line leak before it descended so far down the social scale it ended life as a junk shed on Daddy’s farm.
To me, that camper was worth every cent!
Nutsrok 
I read this post through twice to make sure I felt every nuance. The penultimate sentence was priceless, “it descended so far down the social scale it ended life as a junk shed on Daddy’s farm.”
Was the bus parked close enough that you could play in it when it wasn’t being used a handful of times?
I laughed that you felt the bus was worth every cent. You are THE BEST storyteller!!
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Before its incarnation as a junk shed, Daddy set it up across the road for a handyman to live in. That didn’t go so well, another story. Its promotion to junk shed was a big step up. Mother was furious when Daddy moved it right behind her new house where it shined like a diamond in a goat’s butt. I never played in it. My younger sisters may have, but there were many better places to play including the huge barn. It was dirty, stinky, and infested with rats who were after the chicken feed stored in there. More on that later.
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You are too much! “shined like a diamond in a goat’s butt” That is so funny.
What a description of the barn! I can’t wait for more on that.
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Never thought of writing about the barn! Thanks.
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I can imagine that (no matter how it looked like) it was a THE adventure for you kids! Oh, and your whining mother…lol
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Oh, it was!
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😄
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We loved it.
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I bet!
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It sounds like you have some great memories in this bus!
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It was so much fun.
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What an adventure it must have been. Kids who get to spend out in nature are the blessed ones.
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Oh, we had nature a’plenty. Of course in those primitive, unhygienic days we went out and pooped with the bears. Never heard a single complaint. Of course, we weren’t in a park. We weren’t park people. We were down a back road, deep in the woods on a creekbank.
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Dan said it better than I could. The camper may have been less than ideal, but you got such wonderful memories from it.
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So right. I didn’t need fancy. I needed fun.
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Good memories are priceless.
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Like money in the bank. There when you need it. I take mine out often and careful to put more in. I still bask in my grandmother love and she’s been gone more than sixty years.
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I had such a grandmother.
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It’s a lucky kid with that kind of grandma
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