I was not quite 6 in 1951 when we drove from Southern California to the 8 day NY Intl. Convention at Yankee Stadium. We could not afford motels or restaurants on the way, (4 adults and 3 children) in an old Ford sedan. We pulled off in the bushes behind billboards, set up cots then roasted and ground raw wheat. We had canned condensed milk to put on it so it could be swallowed. Breakfast was the same, then back in the car for another 500 mi day. One evening we pulled off the highway in the St Louis area near the Mississippi river. Hot, humid and dark, then the mosquitos swarmed. Mom got me and my little sister up on a cot and we stayed under a wool army blanket and slapped the whining mosquitos that buzzed our ears. We got eaten alive.
When we got there we set up tents in the New Jersey bogs "Tent City" where the program was piped in (incomprehensible) from the stadium in NY City. The huge camp was set up in a grid with Bible name streets. It rained everyday and the mud was knee deep for me. Bales of straw were brought in to help keep our sleeping pallets out of the mud. We had plywood cold water latrines with gang showers and the toilets were holes in a long bench over a pit of buzzing flies. Bare bulbs in the ceiling were always swarming with bugs.
Went through the about the same thing again in '53.
For some reason I can't get the quote to turn off, but wow! Gregor, I don't think I'll be able to complain about anything. You survived Tent City!