Skip to main content

The Shame of Surrender

You gotta give humans credit for being resourceful and inventive, especially when they are rationalizing their own sinful weakness. (5 extra credit points for finding the quote in Ben Franklin's autobiography about his deviation from his youthful vegetarianism.)

I actually have an electric heater warming the inside of my trailer. The Kill-a-Watt device says that it is using only 860 Watts. I wonder if it will be running continuously at 7 tomorrow morning. 

How have the mighty fallen! Last year my unheated trailer set a personal record for hitting 28 F inside. But tonight I keep looking at the heater and telling myself that it isn't really cheating because I am mooch-docking on a friend's driveway.

Normally I mock (good-naturedly) the eremitic virtues of the hook-up-free camper, and then turn around and scold any camper who is using heat. Strange.

Not so long ago, I played with the freezing point, as if it were an unattainable achievement. I used to flirt ever so closely with 32 F, getting closer and closer... 

What would happen when I hit the freezing point? Would plumbing or canned goods burst? Would it be impossible to sleep? It was analogous to the premise of a fairly well known movie made back in the 1980s. (And 3 extra credit points to the reader who can identify the movie.)

And just like the movie, a certain ennui sets in when you have broken the barrier and can now only improve on it slightly.

Comments

Ted said…
Who could know, a couple of weeks ago when it was getting hot, that the coldest part of winter was yet to come? It dipped below 40°F even here near Yuma, AZ this morning. Brrr!
Bob said…
There is no virtue in needless suffering . Sure like my catalytic heater!!!
Catalytic heaters are OK, but I doubt I'll ever buy another one. Overpriced. They make too much condensation.
edlfrey said…
I'll try for the 5 points since I know practically nothing about movies from the '80s.

"But I had formerly been a great lover of fish, and, when this came hot out of the frying-pan, it smelt admirably well. I balanc'd some time between principle and inclination, till I recollected that, when the fish were opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs; then thought I, "If you eat one another, I don't see why we mayn't eat you." So I din'd upon cod very heartily, and continued to eat with other people, returning only now and then occasionally to a vegetable diet. So convenient a thing is it to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do." - Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Chapter IV
Dadgummit, I thought I had learned to disguise my hints well enough to keep you from grabbing anymore (prestigious) extra credit points.

But you win again!
I believe I have omitted mentioning that, in my first voyage from Boston, being becalm'd off Block Island, our people set about catching cod, and hauled up a great many. Hitherto I had stuck to my resolution of not eating animal food, and on this occasion consider'd, with my master Tryon, the taking every fish as a kind of unprovoked murder, since none of them had, or ever could do us any injury that might justify the slaughter. All this seemed very reasonable. But I had formerly been a great lover of fish, and, when this came hot out of the frying-pan, it smelt admirably well. I balanc'd some time between principle and inclination, till I recollected that, when the fish were opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs; then thought I, "If you eat one another, I don't see why we mayn't eat you." So I din'd upon cod very heartily, and continued to eat with other people, returning only now and then occasionally to a vegetable diet. So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.
During cooling trends, expect cold early in fall and late in spring, and lots of rain and snow.

During the last solar minimum, the southwest of the US was plagued with drought.
So! there is another Quote-meister in the readership to rival Ed!
Anonymous said…
I simply don't understand why anyone would want to sit in a freezing RV, bundled up in parka, gloves and hat, when s/he could flip a switch on a space heater, spark the cat heater or fire up the propane furnace. Even early humankind enjoyed a hearty fire.

Chris
Of course you understand: some people want camping to be a bit of an outdoorsy challenge. Other people want RV living to be comfortable, safe, normal, suburban living on wheels.
XXXXX said…
No, KB. I don't understand either.
It is a bit of a Stoic thing though.....hardening up one's body, doing without, etc. as a way to tame the body's passions and strengthen the spirit.
Have either of you read "Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot" by Jim Stockdale....same guy that was Ross Peret's VP pick. He was a POW in Vietnam and used Stoic principles, especially Epictetus', to get through it.
XXXXX said…
Actually, KB, you make a better Spartan....."with your shield or on it."
No, I haven't read that book. Sounds like it could be interesting.

I don't understand why my commenters have turned out to be such sybarites! (grin)
Ed said…
I have not read his book but from what I have read about him Stockdale was the real deal - a prisoner of war hero. McCain was a media construct and has been one his entire life.
XXXXX said…
Yes, I do indeed think I'm right now that I have been thinking about it awhile. Just reference the title to this post.....the shame of surrender.....how very Spartan of you!
Anonymous said…
"Of course you understand: some people want camping to be a bit of an outdoorsy challenge. Other people want RV living to be comfortable, safe, normal, suburban living on wheels."

A reasonable response, Boonie. But when I think of "an outdoorsy challenge", I think of tent camping. In that mode, anything (uncomfortable) goes.

Chris
But tent camping is just for weekenders.