Tents, Fishing Poles and Goat Diving

Campfires are special.

The smoke and burning embers invite us to draw near. They insulate us from the dark night that surrounds a campsite. A group of young boys around a campfire always find plenty to talk and laugh about long into the early morning hours. Campfires are great memories.

At the age of 14, boys have a lot of energy, and a week-long camping trip is a good way to spend some of it.

For several summers a group of boys in New Madrid went on a camping trip up in the river bottoms. School dismissed in May and they began their planning. They so looked forward to sitting around the evening fire.

One week in June they loaded their camping gear on their horses and rode to a local bayou to make camp. They carried tents, pots and pans, fishing gear and .22 cal. rifles. It took the good part of a morning to make the trip on horseback following the country lanes and crossing a few cleared fields.

Their favorite place was near a wooden bridge that stretched across a bayou. There, in a clearing just below the bridge, they made their camp. The bayou was a good place to fish, and the nearby woods had plenty of squirrels to hunt. At night they could listen to the owls and bobcats while telling stories around the fire.

Their first afternoon included checking out the local surroundings, gathering enough firewood for the week-long stay, setting up their tents and lean-tos, and tossing a couple of baited trotlines into the bayou.

They finally settled in to camp and gathered around the fire. Evening was coming on when they heard "cloppity clop" up on the wooden bridge. They looked up and saw a herd of goats on the bridge, having wandered down from a farmhouse up the road. The goats might have come to investigate the boys, or, perhaps, this was their evening ritual.

One of the boys said, "Let's get 'em." They all jumped up from around the fire, ran up on the bridge and began chasing and catching the goats. Goats and boys ran in all directions, the goats clamoring and the boys maneuvering to corral each one. One-by-one off the goats went into the bayou, and when each one splashed in, there was an uproarious cheer from the group of boys.

After the last goat went in, the boys returned to their campfire. The goats climbed out the bayou, scampered up the bank, shook themselves off, and then made their way back home. Campfire talk that night included the goat tossing.

The next evening back came the herd of goats, and the boys had the same fun catching and throwing them all from the bridge into the bayou. Again the goats climbed out, shook themselves off, and walked back up the road to the farm. That day's goat tossing was one of their campfire adventures they recounted -- each splashing goat and the look on its face when it hit the cool bayou water.

Their next day in camp was a busy one. The campers were quite successful catching fish and killing squirrels. They were hungry as evening came on and were busy in camp cleaning and cooking up their day's harvest around their fire.

In fact, they were so preoccupied with their dinner they completely forgot about the goats until they heard the "cloppity clop" up on the bridge. The boys all jumped up, but that's as far as they got this time. The goats, all now on the bridge, looked down at the group and then they all jumped from the bridge into the bayou.

One of the campers recalled in later years, "The goats took all of the fun out of it."