Before REI: When we made our own camping gear

I’m sitting here in my office, it’s mid-May, and there is a downpour beating against my windows.

If I was struck with sudden memory loss, I’d still know I was in Western Washington.

Thanks to a combination of mountain ranges and ocean breezes, we’re living in one of the soggiest states on the map. But this does not stop the die-hards from getting out and sitting in a tent.

If it’s raining, you just buy more stuff at REI, to smooth out all that roughing it.

But about 30 years ago, you’d be hard-pressed to find the gear we now take for granted. Thirty years ago, if you wanted something for camping, you made it yourself.

One camping invention that burned itself into my childhood memory – literally – was a device involving a tuna-fish can, a coat hanger and about 10 pounds of paraffin wax.

It was called the “Buddy Burner.”

It was an icon of Girl Scouting in the 1970s. And depending how you engineered it, your Buddy Burner could function as a trite little stove, or a flaming Molotov cocktail with a red-hot handle.

Enter my Girl Scout troop, a gaggle of New York suburban girls led by Mrs. Lee, who I think had a PhD in sewing. Sewing was pretty much all we did. But we were giddy about the end of the school year, because Mrs. Lee had promised us an overnight camping trip in her backyard, complete with sleeping outdoors and a picnic table. Fortunately she already had a tent, so we didn’t have to sew ourselves one.

One item each of us was to bring was a Buddy Burner. That way, in true camping fashion, we could grill our own food, presumably by suspending it over the burning wax with a stick. Mrs. Lee sent us home with detailed instructions, so girls and their parents could spend “quality time” together constructing their Buddy Burners.

I had a pressing engagement with Barbie and Ken, so I handed the instructions off to my aerospace-engineer dad. A couple of nights later, following a lot of cursing and hammering in the garage, he brought in my Buddy Burner. It was a beauty, right down to the coiled cardboard in the can, over which had been poured the paraffin wax. In fact, it looked like a giant wad of paraffin wax attached to a wire handle.

The day of the camping trip finally came. Ten giddy girls crowded into Mrs. Lee’s Army-surplus tent that evening after pizza (the original New York camping food). Mrs. Lee retired to her living room, where she presumably spent the rest of the night with a bottle of wine and a sewing kit. I thought I heard doors being locked.

The night went as well as most nights in tents go: it rained, nobody slept, and at least one kid had an accident in her bag.

When dawn finally broke, Mrs. Lee came out in bathrobe and curlers and announced we would be making breakfast with our Buddy Burners.

The mad rush that ensued was not so much excitement over the Buddy Burners as a need to use the bathroom.

Then we assembled outside with our homemade cooking devices. Hands shook with excitement, as Mrs. Lee explained we each were to light our burner with a match over a large piece of plywood she had placed on the ground.

I honestly cannot remember what was on the menu.

All I know is that I lit my burner, and about 30 seconds later, the board erupted into a sheet of flames.

My father had punched the holes in the can for the handle too low, meaning the all the wax poured out, igniting everything in its path.

Parents coming to pick up their children that morning were treated to a scene of shooting flames and shrieking girls, along with a distraught woman in a bathrobe waving a garden hose.

Not to be outdone, my best friend took her lit Buddy Burner into the tent, where she burned a large hole in the floor with it.

As you can imagine, the rest of my days as a Girl Scout involved … sewing. Mostly things to my pants.

Now if I’m outdoors, I bring nothing that involves actual cooking. Especially in a tent. I have visions of a woman in curlers waving a garden hose.

Thanks for nothing, Buddy Burner.