Thursday, September 8, 2011

In Memoriam: Dave "Sleeping Bear" Adams (oh, and apple pie)

First, the recipe. Then the why.

Sleeping Bear's backpack-style apple pie

Crust
1 Cup Crushed graham cracker
1 stick Butter

Filling
1 1/2 Cup Dried apple slices
1 1/2 Cup Water
8 tsp Sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Melt butter. Mix with graham cracker and form in bottom of a tupperware.

Add apple slices, water, sugar, and cinnamon to a pot and let cook until apples are hydrated. Let excess water boil out. Pour into tupperware.





The nostalgia inspired by the death of someone you haven't thought of in years is surprising. Yet, there it is--a result of a brief e-mail from my father forwarded to me from my Venture Crew Advisor.

My family, thanks to my brother, got pretty involved in a Venture Crew1 that specialized in pre-1840's fur trade reenactments. Wildfire--that's what we called our crew advisor--was a long time reenactment buff who brought in some experienced friends to help teach skills that weren't his strong suit. Without exception, the people that Wildfire brought into to program were--let's just say they were colorful.

Critter was the true epitome of colorful. I've never met him, but I'm told the aptly-named-Critter can sense fear like an animal; and he'll certainly take advantage of your fear2. If anyone could get close to the class of Critter, it was Sleeping Bear.

Sleeping Bear was also aptly named. His tent was always pitched as far away from the other tents as possible. We never worried about animals coming to camp when he was sleeping. Instead, we worried about the environmentalist groups complaining about noise pollution. But it wasn't his snoring alone that earned him the title of Bear. His temperament was a huge component of his name--particularly when he first woke up in the morning.

Rule #1 in camp was don't be stupid.

Rule #2 in camp was never wake Sleeping Bear without a cup of coffee in hand. If you had a mug of hot coffee in your hand when you woke him, you just might survive the ordeal. If you didn't have coffee, you'd likely be treated to a string of vulgarity that could only be published on the internet.

You also had to be careful not to violate Rule #1 in Sleeping Bear's presence. He didn't tolerate it, and he certainly wasn't shy about making his irritation known.

As with most people, however, Sleeping Bear had a lot more to him than you'd ever know from looking at him. This big bear of a man, with a thick scraggly beard grown half way down his chest and hair that hung to his eyes and over his ears was also that man that would teach us how to sew. He would show us how to sew shirts, or to sew leather.

"Sleeping Bear, I want to thank you for that brain tanned deer leather you gave me last summer," Shining Blade told him once. Shining Blade was about to go into his second or third year of college.

"I recall that was good stuff. Did you get good use out of it?"

Shining Blade grinned broadly, "Oh yeah!"

"What did you use it for?" Sleeping Bear's curiosity was definitely piqued.

"I made a present for my girlfriend out of it." Clearly, Shining Blade was one of the better students of sewing, having advanced well beyond shirts and pouches. This may, in fact, have been one of Sleeping Bear's proudest moments as a Venture Advisor3.

Sleeping Bear also taught us how to do bead work, make charcloth, and he would tell us stories of the mountain man history. He was as fierce a friend as he was a critic, and could be both in the same sentence.

In the e-mail from Wildfire, it was clear that Sleeping Bear was looking forward to the Fall reenactment rendezvous. He had told Wildfire, "Bring the Yukon Jack and I'll make the apple pie." His heart gave out just a month shy of that camp out.

I'm not sure if the rendezvous was scheduled for the first or second weekend in October, but since I'm scheduled to be backpacking the first weekend, I may take a few ingredients to make an apple pie in his honor. I've pulled this recipe together as a composite of a few other recipes and trying to adapt it to the limitations of a backpacking trip. Whether or not I add the Yukon Jack has yet to be determined.




1Venturing is a program sponsored by the Boy Scouts of America that gives an even stronger emphasis on high adventure and outdoor activity than does traditional Boy Scouting. While Venturing has it's own system of recognitions and awards, I couldn't tell you anything about them as I was just in it for the fun.

2Ask me to tell you a couple stories sometime. You probably think I'm making them up.

3Naturally, we had an interest in the careers of our advisors. Wildfire was retired Coast Guard. Cap'n Jack was a black smith. Doc was a dentist. When you asked Sleeping Bear what he did for a living, he'd say casually, "I'm a photographer." One day I heard him complaining about how he hated doing school portraits because "there's nothing you can do to make a chubby faced 10 year old feel good about how she looks in her pictures." But he did the pictures anyway when there wasn't much demand for his preferred line of work. I asked him what he preferred to do. "Adult photography," he told me. From the descriptions of the two projects he told me about it didn't sound as trashy as you're probably thinking, but I'm still amazed that he made it past the BSA background checks.

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