Indian Guides is largely about dads and their sons getting together and roughing it. The Guides' credo lists five or six principles by which we can live better lives, but it's really about survival -- survival in the wilds. With a year under our belt, it could be said that The Boy and I are now REAL Indians. You don't just walk into the program and expect to turn into an Indian over night. It takes seasoning. And with a little experience, five or six times a year we can live like unmarried Indians roughing it.

Just as much as the program is about surviving in the dangerous wilderness (with a Texas State Park usage permit affixed to our windshield, of course) Indian Guides is also one of the best excuses for a dad and son to leave the comforts of suburbia, and the conveniences and security of a 4-bedroom home for the weekend. More importantly, as I've found, it is about RETURNING to those creature comforts without encountering creatures or having to burn a tick off of your rear-end.

Perhaps what is most enjoyable to 8-year-old Indian Guides, or "Little Braves" as they are called, is that it enables them to go an entire weekend without showering or brushing their teeth. I don't know if avoiding cleanliness automatically qualifies us to be Indians necessarily, but riding home in a car filled with two guys who are unshaven, unbrushed and unclean takes someone really brave like an Indian. This is the one reason why few women become involved in Indian Guides. Aside from the unpleasantness of having to camp with a bunch of men, few moms would be able to handle going a weekend without personal hygiene. It's strictly a guy thing. An Indian thing.

One of the really fun parts of the program is that we get to pick our own Indian names, which are supposed to reflect the particular interests or characteristics of the person who takes on the name. My Indian name is Dances With Fire Ants. The Boy's name is Hunts For Twinkies. I doubt seriously we have any forebears, but if there were awards for Indian names and their accuracy, The Boy would win hands down and I would be a close second. Although I'm fairly sure they never had them in the 1800s, had we lived back then Twinkies and I would have been Indian jesters. We would have been the ones telling Indian light bulb jokes and toilet papering tee-pees.

There are certain responsibilities that come with spending a weekend camping as Indian Guides. We are in a tribe, and certain life necessities must be met. For instance, food. We must eat food cooked by other guys, which is why they made pre-cooked hamburgers. Food is normally not a problem for guys, be they Indians or suburban Texans. We'll eat almost anything, as long as it is grillable. About the only requirement is that guys usually prefer that whatever we eat is dead.

The hardest part of the entire weekend is that we must make crafts. This is an adventure totally separate from the adventure of camping and guys are largely unqualified. This is the part of the weekend when we are definitely in need of our wives. Guys do not possess the craft gene. Give 11 dads and their sons paint, Popsicle sticks, empty milk jugs, strands of leather, beads and colored bird feathers, and what will be created are things that are largely indiscernible.

However, there was one campout when a guy in our tribe made a gas oven out of an empty Coke bottle and some twigs, which was really an amazing thing to behold. But that's not crafting, that's construction. Another dad made his whiny son a video game using marbles, a couple of batteries and a saddle.

Mostly, though, what comes out of craft time is a bunch of items that are splotched with paint and will be lost in the bottom of a toy box three days after the end of the Indian Guide weekend. But the experience and quality time is what matters most, even if we don't have clue one about crafts.

We do make something called coo sticks, which are bamboo poles that we find along the side of the road. We take them home, sand them down, hang our splotchy crafts on them and take them to our campout weekends. On Saturday nights, we do the Indian thing up really big, marching in a processional to a ceremony. Everyone's faces are painted and our sons have fun, all the while hanging on to the scary possibility that just into the nearby darkness lurks something horrible like a bear or a mountain lion or an empty box of Twinkies.

At our first campout last fall, Twinkies and I slept in the back of my truck. Like any decent Indian would have in the old days, we froze. At our last campout, a couple of weekends ago, Twinkies and I camped in a tent. Again, we were a little chilly, but for Twinkies and me, it was all part of the Indian experience. When in America, do as the Native Americans did, right?

I must say that Twinkies and I more resembled Indians than any of the other 100 wannabes that had come along for the weekend. Most of the other Dads, or Big Braves as they are called, are Pop-Up Big Braves, or worse, 5th-Wheeler Big Braves. Some Big Braves have RVs bigger than my house. These are NOT real Indians. They are pretenders who don't have the nerve to sleep in tents, near signs that warn of mountain lions, separated only by a sheet of nylon and a zipper. These Pop-Up Big Braves could never sleep in tents on terra that's really firma, furiously swat flies and dance with fire ants.

During our two nights together in the tent, Twinkies and I truly matured as outdoorsmen.

In the darkest part of the night, shortly after 10, we went to bed. I turned on a small space heater, cranked up the radio, flicked on a nightlight and caught up on some reading. We were truly roughing it.

The radio was essential because it drowned out the sounds that any critters might have been making outside our tent wall. (And let me assure you that the only reason I brought the light, the heat and the music was SPECIFICALLY for The Boy, hoping he wouldn't be spooked by nature's symphony of sounds.)

When I was done reading, I turned and looked at Hunts For Twinkies. He was sawing logs, totally unconscious and unaware of any noises wild animals may have been making had they been outside our tent wall. I couldn't believe how fast he'd fallen asleep. He'd spent most of the day asking questions like "Are there any wild animals out here?" "Have you seen any tarantulas?" "Do bears live in these mountains?" and "Where are the Pringles?" I figured by nightfall, we'd have to get a hotel up the road because he'd be so concerned about sleeping near the ferocious animals that were surely inches beyond out tent, lurking in the darkness.

I made up some quick answers to reassure him.

"Don't worry, Twinkies," I said. "There's too much activity for wild animals or bears to come down from the mountains, tarantulas don't come out until after Memorial Day, and yes, I did see your Pringles earlier and boy were they good."

Apparently my answers worked. I started to turn the lantern and radio off, but decided just in case he wakes up in the middle of the night and hears a mountain lion outside the tent wall, he'd need some of the comforts of home to reassure him.

The next morning, we broke camp, rolled up the tent, found the Pringles and let out a general sigh of relief that we'd weathered the wilderness and all it had to throw at us. On the way home, on the way back to Mrs. P and central air, I couldn't help but think how all Indian Guide campouts are just two overnights, never any longer. With a bunch of guys cooking, making crafts and going without a shower for two days, it sure makes our wives seem a lot smarter. Not to mention, we probably couldn't survive much longer than a weekend. Especially those wimpy Pop-Up Big Braves.

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