Camping and opening cans

From 1966 through 1968, I was teaching in Germany for the department of defense. During summer break I decided to travel and camp in as many countries as I could. I had a Volkswagen bug; I decided to make it a camper bug. I took out the passenger seat and had the shop teacher at out school build me a bed that went from the dashboard onto the back seat. It was a long piece of plywood and served as a table as well as a bed.

I spent that summer camping in eight different countries. I started in Germany, camped in southern France, then on to Barcelona, Spain. From Barcelona, back to France with a stop in Monaco, winding up at an abandoned army base on the cliff above town.

I fixed supper and climbed out on the rocks to watch the sunset. As I looked down, there was a most beautiful scene before me. The lights of Monaco slowly came on as the sun set.

The next morning, I took a winding road down into the town. I think it was the same winding road where Princes Grace was later killed.

On to Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium and finally Holland. I then drove back to my room in Germany for a welldeserved rest.

Most every night I was able to eat a hot meal even though I didn’t have a stove. I used canned food; I had all the canned vegetables as well as various canned meats. In order to eat a hot meal all you have to do is lay cans of food on your car engine an hour or so before you stop for the night and you now have a delicious hot meal. I had a small can opener on my key ring. It’s one of those small can openers that our troops use in the field.

When I returned to America I used my camper bug to travel from Georgia to California on two different occasions. It served me well. Twenty years later, I was telling this story to the students in one of my classes. I was telling them how you put your cans on the car engine to get the food hot. Now all you have to do is open the cans with your can opener. One of the girls in the class raised her hand and said, “Mr. Davis, you are lying to us.” I told her, “No, I’m not lying. I did all these things.” She replied, “You’ve got to be lying because you didn’t have any electricity for the can opener.”

I fell to the floor laughing.