Although I grew up in what some might call a typical "Amurrcun family", I've grown increasingly suspicious of the use of the term by certain elements of our society. Yeah, I'm white, I grew up in an educated working-class house and my mom stayed at home until my brothers and I were in school. We went to church every Sunday and all of us wore new clothes (made by my mom) on Easter.

There are those who might say that my current status as a reasonably well-adjusted and successful member of the aforementioned society was contingent on those "family" factors. But ponder this: I'm a born-again atheist who sees morality in shades of gray, not black and white. I got that little quirk from my upbringing as well. My family taught me how to think for myself. That's pretty important, though irrelevant to my purpose here.

My wife Barbara and I spent the past weekend on our annual camping trip to the Potomac. Alright, so this time out the crowd didn't bike, and really, the trees had barely started to turn. Fall is threatening, but hasn't quite arrived yet. Still, the trip was a fine occasion to see old friends and share a beer or ten.

So when we arrived at the Happy Hills campground outside Hancock, Md., and saw the big "A Family Campground" slogan displayed prominently on the sign, there was concern. I mean, my family is more tolerant than most, but I think that the sight of 15 or so twenty and thirty-somethings (and thirty-somethings at heart) unloading case after case of beer into the site next door would have made even my parents a little nervous.

A husband and wife, their two teenaged daughters and two younger (6-8 years old, I think) nieces were camping "next door" to our group. I can imagine that they had good reason to be concerned. But when we cranked up the Willie Nelson, they compensated with Backstreet Boys and Pink Floyd (no, really). And even though we outlasted them into the night, hanging out around the campfire until well after two in the morning, there was nary a complaint. Indeed, ours was not even the last campfire in the vicinity to be extinguished.

But still, we were crashing in a "family campground." On previous trips, our group has been admonished by park rangers (in the case of state parks) and owners (in the case of private establishments) to "calm things down" a little. Occasionally, the complaints arrived more than once in a night. We're harmless drunks and we don't carry guns, but we can be loud. To some people's way of thinking, what we talk about in extremely animated voices might be considered obscene. But at Happy Hills, no one said a thing.

The only bit of "family" strangeness occurred at the hobo dance.

That little shindig needs explaining. When we arrived, the bulletin board at the office advertised a "hobo dance" from 8 p.m. to midnight. We had no idea what a "hobo dance" might be (we did assume enough to skip out on the "hobo stew" dinner from 6 to 8), but by about nine-thirty, our group was in the bag enough to wander down to the main office area and find out about this hobo dance thing first hand..

Apparently, a "hobo dance" is where rednecks line dance to whatever music is played. Like, say, the r&b classic "Strokin'" or perhaps some generic Miami bass rap (think 2 Live Crew, as clean as they have to be).

Well, one thing led to another, and the Billy Idol version of "Mony Mony" (extended dance remix, not the "live" version which was the pop hit) found its way into the speakers. The DJ, working very hard to promote a "family" atmosphere, tried to do an edit job on the "Hey everybody, get drunk and get fucked!" which always seems to accompany any proper playing of that song. When the appropriate time came, however, the guy yelled into his mic: "Hey everybody, read books and drink milk!"

Two noble causes, I must admit, but futile ones nonetheless, as a sizable group of 12 or 13-year-old girls doing the electric slide on the concrete slab immediately vocalized their preference for the more traditional version, much to the delight of their parents (that, by the way, is not a sarcastic comment).

As more than one of us expressed on the Sunday morning coming down, "I was a bit worried about this place when we rolled in, but it sure turned out alright." And it did. I have to admit, I kinda like the version of "family" that I experienced (and witnessed) over the weekend. There's getting together with my friends and loved ones (which are pretty much one and the same), and there's this looser, congenial fraternity of mellow (and somewhat seedy) campers who plunk down for a night or two to try and clear their minds of all the excess crap. Hard to be too stressed out when you're ten beers down, lying on your back and contemplating the stars (a whole sky of them!) and listening enraptured to the symphony of forest life.

Maybe there really is something to this "family" concept after all.

Jon Worley took the long way there and back again, spending far too much time on the Blue Ridge Parkway and Shenandoah National Park's Skyline Drive.