Back in the day, Chris Shea, Adam Lamb, Austin Moening and I built a 4-story tree fort in the fields by my backyard. It started as a 1-story fort but we could not resist the urge to continue to build higher on the perfectly-suited tree. It was a majestic thing with a superfluance of nails.

The first level was enclosed in plywood and the second and third levels were just floors made of 2 x 4s. The fourth floor was more like a ceiling or roof. There were no guard rails on the fourth floor and it was very high up and kind of scary. It was one of the triumphant accomplishments of my youth. Me and Shea hung out there a lot--and yet--I don't have a single picture to prove it.

Update: I found a picture of us on the fort but it is at night and all you can see is a 2x4.  I was talking with Chris the other day and he said that my aunt took a picture of us all on the fort.  I will have to search my parents' albums for that photo.  Dave, when can I borrow that document feed scanner?

A rival fort emerged near the top of the hill by the power lines in the fields.  It was probably more soundly constructed and it was completely enclosed on all four sides.  However, it did not have the height that ours had.

I remember that me and some of my high school buddies challenged the owners of the rival fort to a game of capture the flag.  The flag was a person from the other team that you had to rescue and return to your fort. 

What resulted was a fierce and no-holds-barred competition.  Not content to simply chase or out run us, the other team absconded Rick Davies and began to give him an ample beating.

That pretty much ended the game.  We treated our captives nicely though.  Despite the fact that they were forced to sit atop the fourth story where there was no guard rail, we provided them with efervescent beverages from my dad's green cooler and "gentlemen's" magazines.

I remember that I had a childhood bully named Dane Fife. I remember that him and his sidekick Trevor came by my house one afternoon and started saying "Is this where you live?"

Because he was my bully and I thought he was making fun of my house I lied and said "No it's just my summer house". How lame.

But it get's even lamer. Dane clarified and said that he was talking about our mailbox. It was a very big mailbox and he was inferring that I lived in it. Very lame.

I remember that there was this one spot in the fields where there was a good sized hole. It was not quite long enough to lay down in but it was waist deep. There was a rusted out spring mattress next to it and we would sometimes bounce off the mattress and into the hole. We called the hole "Old Bessie". It was a landmark of my childhood and of the fields.

One time I was hitchhiking down in the south when I was a teenager. I got in the back seat of this Chevrolet and this old woman was driving it with her daughter and I thought she looked real nice. Pretty soon she rolled down the window and she gave a big spit out the window (snuff spit). And it went all over the window next to me and my opinion of her changed immediately. Funny how I was attracted to her, but then minutes later, that all changed.

My dad took us kids in 1932 (kidnapped us from our mother). We ended out in Alabama out in the hills. We stayed I this old lady’s house and she would sit there in a rocking chair. She chewed snuff and she would spit it into the fire and it would make a huge noise.

I also remember at the time when we were hiding from the sherrif, there were these mud slides out there by the river. We had a great time on them, even the colored people had one down by the other side of the river. Sadly these white guys put razor blades in their mud . . . Read More..