Far be it from me to dispute the colorful story of Senior Editor Greg Bloom, but there are certain errors I need to expose for the sake of honesty. A few points:
We learned from some locals that the Devil's Tramping Ground is only tramped upon by some old crippled man who likes to drink there without his wife knowing about it. Either this is the case, or the devil has a taste for Pabst Blue Ribbon.
As it turned out, we weren't the only ones who were intrigued by the tramping ground stories. A group of high school stoners had already staked a claim in the middle of the circle, and soon after we arrived a few born-again Christians showed up and pitched a tent nearby. Apparently, they were filming a documentary for class. One of them had a yo-yo.
The only ominous sounds of the night came from one of those Christians, who only knew how to play Lynyrd Skynyrd and Enrique Iglesias on his guitar. Luckily, the stoners drove their car into the middle of the circle and blasted some god-awful music. It's kind of hard to sing campfire songs to Korn.
If the devil removes all stones and debris from his circle, he obviously forgot the big-ass rock that we brilliantly pitched the tent on top of and that dug into my shoulder blade all night. I was, in fact, awake when Greg and Chaste Blond noticed the "backwards reader," but that was only because Sleeping Blond had only minutes earlier booted me in the face. "Backwards reader," by the way, turned out to be one of the Christians. I think he was reading the Bible or a Boy Scout manual.
It is true that Greg's keys were gone in the morning. However, the night before, he had been promising to make some sort of "stew" in a big coffee tin, but no one bothered to bring a can opener, so he futilely stabbed at the lid a few times with a key before giving up and eating a few dozen more s'mores. My guess is one of his "hippie-Satanists" stole them shortly thereafter.
We packed up and left the next morning when it started to rain. After stopping for some food, I concluded that the folks who turn out for Sunday breakfast at the Bojangles in Chatham County are as scary as anything we missed at the tramping grounds. The only consolation was seeing a key-less Greg standing on his front porch, hopelessly locked out.
Overall, it was an utter disappointment, as the devil never made an appearance, but a valuable lesson was learned: Never go camping with Greg Bloom.
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