Extenti* (for Extensi*)

When I was a kid, we would camp all summer long. There was Roger's Rock on the legendary Lake George (and the nearby "campiness" of Lake George Village with its resident Frankenstein in front of the wax museum waving at tourists); the beautiful and beautifully named Emerald Lake in Vermont, situated near some rock quarries (which didn't contain emeralds, of course, but did have some marvelous big pieces of marble); and a large campground not far from Provincetown, Mass. (a wonderful place my grandfather, in those pre-Stonewall days, used to call an "artists colony"). Camping was very cheap, but like most other things, it's gotten rather more expensive and overly extensive. Back then, with a tent and some stakes, enough sleeping bags and cots, a kerosene lamp, and a few basic cooking utensils at hand, you were all set for the duration. You'd see plenty of motivated campers (people) around, but very few motorized ones (RVs, trailers, etc.). Which is not to say, for example, that the newer nylon tents aren't an improvement over the old, unwieldy, and remarkably heavy canvas kind. But I guess what I am saying, by extension, is simply that less is more, simpler is better, and for the most part, why try and improve on perfection? I stumbled upon this typo today in the local newspaper: "Tax cut extention helps economy." Either way, though, and regardless of your financial situation, you can still afford to go camping. There were 116 cases of Extenti* in OhioLINK, and "too many records found for your search" in WorldCat.

(Gordale Scar Camp Site near Gordale Scar in the Yorkshire Dales, North Yorkshire, U.K., 2009, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid