Camping - Part II

Two noteworthy events occurred on this year’s camping trip.  The first involves an unfortunate incident with a chipmunk and the second (Camping – Part III) a streaking at a local restaurant.

About twelve years ago, on what would be (unbeknownst to him) one of my Dad’s final trips to OTF, there was a tragic incident involving his foot and a chipmunk.  My Dad loved to feed Chippee, one of the many chipmunks (all named Chippee) that would crawl up onto his lap for peanuts at our campsite.

One evening around dinner I heard a blood curdling scream from my mother.  We all came running to find Chippee convulsing our green indoor/outdoor carpet.  My Dad had stepped on the poor thing and, in an effort to calm the situation and make my Dad feel better my mom just kept yelling over and over, “Peter, you stepped on Chippee!” Horrified and visibly distraught my Dad did the only thing he could do; he grabbed his shovel, scooped up the dying chipmunk and took him into the forest to finish him off.

Fast forward to July 2012 and the McCabe family had our very own Chippee as we do every year.  One afternoon while we were all sitting around and Chippee was being particularly well fed something went terribly wrong.  Our oldest daughter called out to us that something was wrong with Chippee.  We ran over to find him (flashback moment) convulsing on our indoor/outdoor carpet.  We all stood looking at the poor thing in horror and unsure of what to do.  Pulling on my only reference for what to do in such a situation I advised (told) Eric to get the shovel and take care of it.  He then looked at me in horror but somehow found the courage to scoop the little guy up and put all of us out of our collective misery.

We have no idea how poor Chippee ended up dying outside our trailer door. There are theories that someone stepped on him without knowing or that maybe he choked on a peanut.  We’ll never really know but what we will always have is my daughter’s reenactment of the convulsing chipmunk which she will show anyone who asks.

In the end all I could do was comfort the kids and tell them the story of their Grandpa Pete. Fortunately, within half an hour another friendly chipmunk appeared at our trailer and both girls yelled out, “Chippee!”