I began camping with a group of guys in the fall of 1980. Every spring and fall since then, we have reassembled, celebrating our 40th anniversary this October. On the initial camping trip to the Cranberry River in West Virginia, one of my campmates, George Gillespie – who was observing as I cooked breakfast – said that he would bring some Banner Sausage on the next trip and cook it. Another campmate, Wayne Haga, chimed in that he also was a huge fan of Banner Sausage.
In case you’ve never heard of Banner Sausage, they make this “sausage” from the very bottom of a gut pile – stuff that even the buzzards won’t eat. It is nasty.
Well, George and Wayne didn’t bring any Banner Sausage the next trip, so I decided I would bring some the next time.
I went to the grocery store and bought a can of cheap dog food, Ken-L Ration, I believe, and a can of Banner Sausage. Carefully, I steamed the labels off each can and switched them, so the can of dogfood had the Banner Sausage label. I took the bogus can to the next camping trip and suggested that George cook a little for breakfast, but I believe he smelled a rat and didn’t bite. Nonetheless, I continued to bring that same can again each trip, hoping that someday they would open the can of dogfood for breakfast.
I suppose it had been 5 or 6 years since that initial trip when we switched camping venues from the Cranberry River to the Jackson River. We had found a wonderful campsite, and rather than having to hike two miles down a mountain, we had only a short walk to our riverside campsite. We had just completed hauling all our gear to the site and had set it on picnic tables in grocery bags when some of us dispersed to fish. I had walked a few hundred yards downstream when I saw a stranger at our campsite. I figured another of my campmates, Dave Gladwell, had struck up a conversation with the stranger. Dave would talk to a dead tree stump if he had the chance and stump didn’t run away.
When I got back I asked about the stranger and no one knew anything about him.
Then, as I set about to unpack, one of the grocery bags was missing. That asshole had swiped one of our grocery bags. In it were a couple rolls of Bounty towels and some canned goods – including the can of Banner Sausage.
Well, there is a God, and I bet He a got a chuckle out of watching our thief eat that can of Banner Sausage.