As a kid, I loved forts.
Blame it on an over-powered imagination or the fact that I watched a few too many Our Gang reruns… but I wanted a fort of my own. I needed a fort.
Ideally, a tree-fort.
We lived in the city at the time, and I was in 3rd grade. We had a nice tree in the front yard; it wasn’t a pine, so maybe it was an elm. But that doesn’t matter.
Anyway, a neighbor had a bunch of pallets in the back yard, so I snuck one away and pulled it beneath my tree. Now, this wasn’t one of those cruddy pine pallets that you find today; this was a nice oak one, and it must have weighed 80 or 90 pounds.
Me being a little kid, had no way to pull it up the tree as I climbed it, so I did the next best thing; I got some rope, and pulled it up there. I remember it being difficult, but I was pumped to finally have my first real fort.
Next up: nails.
As a kid, nails were rare things. I didn’t have a dad around, so there were not a bunch of coffee cans lying around full of nails. Simply put, there were none. So, I’d look through scrap wood, and pull out the nails that I could find, and I’d attempt to straighten them.
Now armed with nails, I nailed my pallet to the tree, and then proceeded to tie some ropes around the tree, so I had some stuff to swing on.
One of these included a noose.
And yes, this is completely true.
I was playing with a pal, lost my balance, and fell head first into the noose.
Two things.
1. The rope was really short, so it’s not like I really fell far enough to break my neck.
2. The noose wasn’t a slip knot or a hangman’s noose. It was a hoop.
However, I was hanging by my neck, and choking. I certainly wasn’t able to pull myself out, and would have surely died if my friend hadn’t been there to help me catch my footing.
When I went back in the house, my mom saw the rope burns, and would not believe that I wasn’t attempting suicide. (Which of course, I wasn’t.)
When she saw the fort, as lame as it was, she made me take it down, and return the pallet to it’s rightful place.
Later that year, I found a neighbor who had put their dog house in the alley, with a sign that said “If you can take this, you can have it.”
I promptly asked my mom, and drug the thing into our backyard.
It had a corrugated metal roof, but I sat in it for many hours, enjoying my new (dog smelling) fortress.
- Daniel
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Ah, the mighty fortress of solitude. I cannot count the number of forts I had as a child. We moved a lot.
I used to live near a hobby farm run by OTR Truckers, when I was a kid. When they were on the road, I would take care of the horses, chickens, grouse, quail and pheasant and the occasional pig. There was an old railway car that was behind the barn that was usually full of hay. I took some old tires and built a sofa out of them and a couple of busted bails. It was huge and metal and had ladders up the sides and over the top. Hours of make believe were spent in/on that fort.
That was where I learned how to start a Model-T, tractor or a Harley and throw a knife. Chicago Steve had a set of balanced knives in his vast collection and we would put a paper plate on a board and throw at it until it was smithereens. The only place you don’t see me with at least 3 knives is at the airport. I have never had to use them, but they instill a small sense of confidence.
I like the smell of horse manure and diesel exhaust more than fabric softener and catalytic converters. (I really miss those old trucker buddies that I never really knew anybody’s full/real name)
That was where I learned how to start a Model-T Ford, tractor or a Harley and throw a knife. Chicago Steve had a set of balanced knives in his vast collection and we would put a paper plate on a board and throw at it until it was smithereens. The only place you dont see me with at least 3 knives is at the airport. I have never had to use them, but they instill a small sense of confidence.
I like the smell of horse manure and deisel exhaust more than fabric softener and catyletic converters. (I really miss those old trucker buddies that I never really knew anybodys full/real name) Salute to Ronny, Chicago Steve, Pee-Wee, Taters and the lot of em. Yeah, they used to call me Jay Bird.
I used to find stands of trees near (kinda) our house wherever we lived at the time, and then I’d buy some sheets at a garage sale when next I could, and build a fort in the woods by draping sheets over tree limbs around a thicket.
Awesome, Dane. I can imagine that…