MY PARENTS WOULD TAKE ME and my older sister Cindy up to Fifty Lakes when we were kids. I guess we went up there two or three summers in a row, when Dad took a week off from his job at the accounting firm. There was a camp that rented out spots to people with travel trailers-Airstreams and the like-before everyone started going to Winnebago-style RVs that you didn’t tow but drove.

We didn’t have anything as upscale as an Airstream. Dad had gotten a deal, from someone he worked with at the accounting firm, on a tent trailer, which looked like a flattened box while en route, hitched to the back of the car. When you reached your destination, the contraption opened up with a canvas top, high enough to stand in, a big bed at each end, and a little sink with running water. Cindy and I weren’t in our teens yet back then, so our parents had us sleep together on one side, while they took the other. I’d spend most of the night lightly running my finger along Cindy’s neck so she’d think her sleeping bag was infested with spiders, and when she’d awake at midnight, screaming, I’d pretend to have been roused from a deep sleep just like my parents, who’d shout at her to be quiet, sometimes waking other campers in nearby spots. The hard part then was trying to roll over and not pee myself laughing.

That was probably the most fun thing about camping. The swimming and the fishing, those things were okay. But Dad spent so much time enforcing rules of behavior to keep us from hurting ourselves, or any of our secondhand camping equipment, that the appeal of vacationing was limited.