It was lunchtime at work and I had some time to kill. Two buildings down sits the old second hand store where I occasionally go looking for any kind of "treasures" that catch my eye. Once I bought a 1960's Mitchell 410 reel in really nice condition, and another time I bought an old Coleman cooler, one of the metal ones, with a blue finish.
Most times there was nothing really worth buying but every so often something interesting would come up. So as I rummaged through the store killing time on my lunch break I came across a really heavy canvas bag that catches my eye. It appears to be some kind of tent, as there are two bags; one with aluminum poles in it and the other larger, much heavier bag containing the tent. I could see that it wouldn't be easy to remove this heavy canvas tent from the bag, but I was interested in it nonetheless.
I asked the lady at the front counter about the tent. "How much for the old green tent?"
"Oh that old thing"? She replied, "Ten bucks".
I didn't say anything and looked over in her direction for a moment thinking about whether it was worth chancing ten bucks on. "How about seven dollars?" she asks.
"Ok, sold!" I handed over the seven dollars and she told me if it was ripped or unusable in any way I could return it. So without thinking much of it, away I went.
That weekend I decided to try and set up the tent and see just whether or not this thing was in decent shape. As I pulled everything out of the bag, I immediately noticed it was a Coleman. Nice! In fact it said "Coleman Oasis" on the corner in a stencil like writing. It was big too, 13"X10" according to the stenciling.
Ok so I still had no idea how this thing went together but I really liked it right away. It reminded me of the tents I had camped in as a kid. They certainly don't make em like that anymore. I went inside to try googling this type of tent to see how it might look when put together. I really couldn't find anything on it. There were Coleman Oasis tents online, but they were all the new nylon tents. Ok so back outside into the warm August morning to see if I could "wing it".
As I was making my attempt at putting the tent together I noticed that sewn on the inside flap was a waxed pamphlet detailing how to put the tent together! Awesome! It took me awhile and I must admit I could have used some help but I finally was able to put the tent up. Two things struck me, and that was just how nice of shape the tent was in, and also that it was really cool. I wanted to camp in this thing!
What I realized was that this tent would be perfect to pitch on our hunting farm in September for the youth Deer season. So plans were made and permission obtained from the farmer to camp at the edge of a crop field. It was to be my friend Tim, and his son Drake, my son Reece and I. Both boys are the same age, 13, and can now take a Deer with a gun here in Michigan during a special weekend hunt. We figured the weather would be perfect for camping this time of year and so when the time arrived I brought the tent in to work where Tim and I both are employed. Our plan was to set up the tent on our lunch break. Leaving the office at noon, we soon discovered how windy it was. There were 35MPH gusts and we wondered how hard it just might be trying to set camp up! Well lets just say there should have been a camera on us, as we struggled to pitch the old Coleman in the heavy winds. We would have made the Three Stooges proud with our bumbling efforts! Well we were definitely going to be late getting back to work, this was taking well over an hour! Nonetheless we were able to finally get it set up and guyed down. I was worried about tearing though and, in fact some of the canvas loops did tear from the tie-downs. We left the tent there, and hoped the winds would calm down.
That night after work, we picked up all or gear, grabbed the boys, and headed out to the farm. The boys were super excited. Drake had just got a new H&R 20 gauge and was dying to show us all. Reece would be using my muzzleloader which he had shot before with good results. Once there the boys helped cart all the gear to the site and it took us several trips up and down a large hill before we had everything at camp. Drake showed us his new gun and I must admit, I started thinking about getting my own 20 gauge for hunting next year. His was a single shot model with a Monte Carlo stock, and he was very accurate with it. We made a nice meal and basically sat around that evening full of anticipation and expectation of the following mornings hunt.
The wind never did fully die down and as we settled in for the night, it actually whipped up stronger. We had plenty of room though for all 4 of us and even though the tent shuddered in the wind, it held up, much to my surprise. There were several times I woke up in the night wondering if the whole thing would blow away and we'd find ourselves, perhaps in Oz somewhere.
We spent the whole weekend camping, hunting and enjoying time together. The boys had a great time, and although neither of them got a buck, they can't wait to do it again next year. Looks like the old Coleman is already a tradition. One of the best $7.00 I have ever spent.
