Hennessy Hammock

I attribute my love of the outdoors and of camping gear to my mother. I was the oldest of five kids, and was 12 years old when my mother started taking us all on two or three week camping trips to beaches, mountains, rivers, lakes from North Carolina to Canada and everywhere in between.

Every summer my incredible, nature-loving mother would pile us all into the family’s 1951 Mercury “Woody” station wagon and drive out of sweltering suburban Washington DC, headed out to the sun-burned beaches of South Carolina, the cool and tranquil state parks of Upstate New York, and everything in between. We would spend the summer camping, cooking and cleaning fish and learning about nature. My mother and younger brother and sisters slept in big old umbrella tents and I slept in my WWII army jungle hammock that I found in an Army surplus store.

My mother and I were responsible for selecting gear for our adventures. In the 1950’s, the best deals for camping gear were in the army surplus stores, so each year we would go searching for new stuff. On one of our forays I found a box of WW II surplus hammocks. They were only about 8 inches in diameter and 10 inches long and had a label that said “Military Jungle Hammock”. Without opening it, I decided to take one for $3 and give it a try. On our next camping trip, I set it up and instantly fell in love with it and decided I would never sleep on the ground again. Although I loved camping and getting out into nature, I did not look forward to the roots, the rocks, the puddles and the sloping ground under the tent. My most panicked experience in a tent, when I was 8 or 10 years old, was waking up in the middle of the night with my face jammed into the lowest corner of the tent because I had slid down the slope in my sleep.

At the age of 16, I would make 200 mile, weekend bicycle trips out of Washington D.C. into the Appalachian Mountains. I carried a minimum of food & water, a light sleeping bag and a WWII surplus U.S. Army jungle hammock. I loved this old thing because it rolled up so small and weighed so little and had no poles or stakes, perfect for moving light and fast.

Later at university, I loaned my hammock to a "friend" who never returned it. As the years passed, I continued to miss that little piece of gear and finally decided to duplicate my old army hammock from memory during my winter vacation.

I purchased all the materials in Vancouver B.C. and flew to Florida to visit my mother, who had taught me to sew when I was 10 and still had her original 1949 sewing machine.