At Camp Dad, Pork, Poker and Pilsener Would Rule

Round and round the Rose Bowl we walk, thinking summer thoughts, thinking that as we go faster and faster in our daily lives we are drawn even more to things of the past: to capri pants, fondue pots and Pasadena. America’s retro links. Climb aboard.

“You know,” I say to my wife, “technically, baseball pants are capri pants.”

“That’s very interesting,” she lies.

She has been explaining capri pants to me as we exercise. They are the pants that end too early, at the knee, leaving the ankle and calf properly bare.

Doris Day used to wear them. And those girls on “Petticoat Junction.” Now they’re everywhere again. Capri pants. Sammy Sosa has several pairs.

“You only think of baseball,” she says.

“Sometimes I think of you,” I say.

Round and round the Rose Bowl we walk, thinking summer thoughts, dodging other walkers and moms with strollers. One guy is huge in the middle, as big around as L.A. soccer coach Sigi Schmid, whose belly arrives at games half an hour before the rest of him.

Then there’s the “Hi-how-are-you guy,” who booms out “Hi, how are you!” to everyone who passes, like the Rose Bowl’s master of ceremonies.

“Here he comes,” I warn my wife.

“HI, HOW ARE YOU!” he roars.

“Pretty good,” I answer.

“GREAT!” he roars.

“Jeeesh,” my wife says after he passes.

“Nice guy,” I say.

It is L.A.’s biggest health club, the Rose Bowl is, attracting hundreds of walkers and joggers on warm July evenings like this. A good place to walk and talk and watch the summer sights.

Once, my older daughter and I saw a roller-blader wedged between a car and a eucalyptus tree, flailing to free himself. But you don’t see stuff like that every day. Only if you’re lucky. Only in the summer.

*

Earlier in the day, I helped the boy get ready for a week at baseball camp, fill his suitcase with snacks and socks and one pair of underwear.

“Don’t overdo the underwear thing,” I say.

“I won’t,” he says.

The boy finishes packing, then works a while on his batting stance impressions. Rich Little does politicians. The boy does outfielders and third basemen.

“Who’s this?” he asks, swinging an imaginary bat.

“Tony Batista,” I answer.

“That’s right,” he says. “Tony Batista. A double every time.”

“Who’s this?” he asks, impersonating another player.

“McGwire?” I say.

“Mo Vaughn,” he says, “except 200 pounds lighter.”

The boy is high on the thought of baseball camp. He will go to Orange County for six days and learn about hitting the ball with overspin and proper footwork on a double play, things his father is a little fuzzy on.

During Q&A; sessions, he will ask the coaches how much Mo Vaughn eats and which major leaguer has the ugliest girlfriend. Stuff like that. They will love him at baseball camp.

“Who’s this?” he asks.

“Jeff Bagwell,” I say.

“That’s an easy one,” he says.

There ought to be a summer camp like this just for dads, a place to indulge our leftover boyish impulses, of which there are many, denied and suppressed by organized religion, do-gooder wives and basic municipal ordinances.

Dads’ camp would be a place where guys could go for a week and work on our boxing and drink sudsy drinks and not watch our language.

Each night, there’d be a summer camp theme. Monday night poker. Tuesday night poker. Wednesday night, a big barbecue. Then poker. Thursday night, martinis and cigars.

The camp would feature an all-pork menu. Sausage. Ribs. Barbecue sandwiches. Doctors would be on hand to do bypass surgeries right there on the spot. Fix you up and get you back to the poker table. Sela Ward would be camp nurse.

“There should be a summer camp for dads,” I tell a friend over the phone one night.

There is a short pause as he absorbs this. Dads have lost a lot of perks in the last generation. A summer camp might be just the ticket.

“There isn’t a camp big enough,” he says.

“Fort Bragg?” I say.

“Too small,” he says.

“How about taking over Montana for a week?”

“Not big enough,” he says.

“Let me work on it,” I say.

*

Round and round the Rose Bowl we go, thinking summer thoughts. Worrying about money. Fretting about the kids.

“Half a lap,” my wife says.

“That’s what you said last lap,” I say.

In the distance, I can smell someone’s barbecued chicken sizzling on a backyard grill. About 10 minutes ago, they brushed on the barbecue sauce. I can tell this from the smoke. For miles around, wild animals and hungry fathers sniff the air.

As always, the smell of grilled chicken makes me ravenous as a wolf. I want to lick the sun lotion from my wife’s elbow. I want to nibble on her pretty neck.

“There should be a summer camp for dads,” I tell her, awash in chicken smoke and basic impulses.

“What?” she says sharply, as if stung by a bee.

“A summer camp,” I say. “Just for dads.”

“Oh, jeeesh,” she says.

Round and round the Rose Bowl we go. . . .

*

Chris Erskine’s column is published on Wednesdays. His e-mail address is chris.erskine@latimes.com.